


Right Guy, Wrong Time

by tacosandflowers



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Futurefic from before the movie, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 08:03:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3480569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacosandflowers/pseuds/tacosandflowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Futurefic. Set 10 years after the series finale, with flashbacks. (Note: I wrote this a few years ago, before the movie had been announced). Veronica has completed her PhD in forensic anthropology and is starting a new job in San Diego when she runs into Logan for the first time in a while. After years of near misses and one-night encounters around the world, can they finally make it work? LoVe! But with a bit of angst first ;) Rated E for smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Marshmallows! This was the first fic I ever wrote, posted on FF.net a few years ago, and I'm finally migrating it over to AO3. It was my way of dealing with the end of the TV series, which still gets me worked up even though I know we now have the movie to satisfy our LoVe needs. These characters are near and dear to my heart. Enjoy!

Veronica Mars walked through the door of her apartment, pulled the pins from the twist at the nape of her neck, shook out her long blonde hair, and exhaled with a sigh. It was a contented sigh, but an exhausted one. She had just finished her first week of work as an assistant professor at the University of San Diego and she was feeling every second of it.

It was her dream job, an academic position that allowed her to train students in forensic techniques while consulting on cases. She had a lot of contacts who wanted her help, thanks to her years of private investigation work with her father, Keith, and the connections she had made through the FBI internship she did after her first year at Hearst.

She had thrived at the FBI, naturally, but something happened during that summer that made her question her career track. After weeks of filing papers and observing senior agents sitting behind their desks in front of computers all day, she began to wonder how satisfying she would find that line of work. Access to information and surveillance techniques were an obvious plus, but she couldn't see herself bound to a desk. She missed the PI office in Neptune and the autonomy she and her father had as independent investigators.

And then something wonderful happened. She found herself assigned, one sweltering day in July, to deliver some files to a forensics lab across the city. When she asked why she was doing this instead of a professional courier, her supervisor simply said, "I want these files in safe hands. And besides, you've been bored out of your mind here in the office. This will give you a chance to see some of the other things we do."

When she entered the lab, she felt like she had come home. A lively team of people worked in glass-walled offices, excitedly talk to each other about the details of their current case. She delivered the documents to the head of the lab, Dr. Jessica Little. Dr. Little smiled and introduced herself, clearly enjoying making the acquaintance of a smart young woman. She offered Veronica a tour of the lab and explained how things worked there. After meeting all of the lab employees and getting a glimpse of the case they were working on, Veronica was hooked. This was a way she could be involved in solving cases while also exploring the science and culture behind the crime scene.

Over the rest of the summer, Dr. Little began to mentor Veronica. She suggested that when she returned to Hearst in the fall, Veronica should enroll in anthropology and biology classes, tailoring her schedule to fit the prerequisites for graduate school programs in biological anthropology that specialized in forensics. With the focus and determination she was known for Veronica dedicated herself to her studies, dreaming of someday running a lab like Dr. Little.

Her hard work had paid off. Ten years later, she had her PhD and had trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. When the job advertisement for a tenure-track professor at the University of San Diego came up, she couldn't let it pass by. Here was the opportunity to do what she loved while living close to Neptune. She teased Keith about how he was getting older and she wanted to be closer to him, and while he laughed at this she knew he was thrilled to have her back.

Being in San Diego put her closer to a lot of things, not only her father. Here she was, living near the place she had gone through so much as a teenager. The murder of her best friend Lilly, her ill-fated relationship with Duncan, her horrible first year at Hearst, and—connecting it all together—her tumultuous love story with Logan.

She pictured Logan as she poured herself a glass of wine and settled onto the couch in her apartment to relax after being on her feet in the lecture hall and the lab all day. She pictured him coming out of the ocean after surfing, his wetsuit unzipped to his navel, exposing a torso well-muscled by years in the water, his wet hair disheveled.

This was how she had seen him last, two years ago on the beach in Hawaii. Was he still living there? She wasn't sure. While her younger self had kept tabs on everyone she knew as a matter of habit, she had stopped tracking Logan after she had last seen him. After her heart had shattered into a million pieces after she said her goodbyes to him on that beach.

Three times. They had seen each other three times over the years between their freshman year at Hearst and now. She had returned from her FBI internship to find that Logan had moved to New York, transferring to Columbia. While at first she suspected that he had made that move with the help of his generous trust fund, she later found out that he had earned it on his own with his writing talents. Logan, it turned out, was a writer. Not just any writer, but a brilliant one. He published his first novel before graduating from Columbia and since then had published two more in addition to writing essays and short stories for magazines and literary journals. He had a great career and he was barely thirty.

He was always in the back of her mind, but for the sake of her own career, and later for her sanity, she had kept him at a safe distance. Three times—a glorious and spontaneous road trip up the California coast after they had graduated from college, a surprise encounter in Geneva four years ago when she was doing research in Europe for her dissertation, and that blazing afternoon on the beach in Hawaii two years ago when she had to turn away for good.

Veronica sipped her wine and heard her stomach rumble, remembering that she had no food in her fridge. All of this self-reflection was making her hungry. Luckily, she had found an apartment in a neighborhood that had plenty of take-out options, so she reached for her laptop and looked up the number of a local Italian place called Zito's. Lasagna. After a grueling first week, she needed lasagna. She made the call.

She changed out of her work clothes into comfortable skinny jeans, sneakers, and an old hoodie. Grabbing her purse and plugging in her headphones, she turned her music on for her walk to the restaurant two blocks away. The Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb" came on shuffle and she walked, enjoying the comfort of her sneakers and the movement stretching out her legs after her long day on her feet.

She was bopping her head along to the beat, smiling at the thought of her dinner, when she suddenly felt a hand on her left arm. Whirling around to face what she assumed was her attacker, she raised her hand with her keys clenched between her fingers—a self-defense technique she's learned years ago—and prepared to strike.

But she froze. Her keys clattered to the sidewalk. One of her headphones fell out and she just stared in amazement.

It wasn't an attacker. It was Logan.


	2. Chapter 2

_~Flashback to the summer after Veronica graduates from college, three years after 3x20~_

Veronica sat at the top of the porch steps of the house her father lived in with his wife, Alicia, and her younger son Darrell. Alicia's older son and Veronica's BFF/step-brother, Wallace, sat on the steps as well. An empty French press sat next to them and they both held steaming mugs of coffee as they squinted out at the mid-morning sunshine.

"That was fun last night," Veronica said, taking a sip.

Wallace grimaced. "Yeah, it was fun. But today is not fun. I've got the headache from hell."

Veronica grinned at him. "That's what you get for taking those tequila shots, brother dear."

"You took them too!" he protested.

"I took  _one_  tequila shot, while you took  _five_. And you were drinking beer while I was mostly drinking water."

Wallace shook his head. "Do you ever do anything irresponsibly?"

Veronica just smiled. They had been out late the night before celebrating the news that Wallace had gotten an internship at an investment bank in New York starting in the fall. Wallace had studied economics at Hearst and was now trying to get into the finance world. This internship was a great start, especially in this economy. It was paid, and would likely lead to a full-time job with the company. He left for New York in August.

The celebration had started with a dinner at the Mars-Fennell house and moved to a bar where various friends from over the years had shown up to give a toast to Wallace. Weevil put in an appearance, stopping by on his way home to his new wife, Carmen, who had recently given birth to their first child. Even Duncan had shown up. He had returned to Neptune with his toddler daughter, Lilly, a few months before, when she was old enough to start pre-school. He wanted her to grow up in the same place he did, and once the Mannings had been put in jail for their abusive treatment of their daughters, it was safe for him to return and obtain legal custody of Lilly. Friends from Hearst who hadn't left town after graduation showed up as well. They were celebrating Veronica, too. She had been accepted to the forensic anthropology graduate program at the University of Pennsylvania and would be starting there in the fall. It had been wonderful to be out with friends, feeling excited about their futures.

Veronica sipped her coffee, idly watching the action on the street in front of the house. Dogs were barking, kids were playing, and it was a gorgeous day. As she watched, a green, late-model Land Rover rolled up to a stop in front of the house and parked. She took another sip of coffee and then her gaze focused on the driver and her heart seemed to stop as she spat out her coffee, splashing a bit on Wallace.

"Geez, V!" Wallace laughed, and then his smile faded as he followed Veronica's eyes to see what she was looking at.

Logan Echolls had emerged from the Land Rover and was walking around the car towards the sidewalk.

"Well isn't this a blast from the past," Wallace said.

It certainly was. Veronica hadn't seen Logan since the end of their freshman year at Hearst. Nobody had seen him. They knew that he was in New York, knew what he was doing. Everyone in Neptune had read his books. It was hard not to when they knew the plot was partially based on his intense childhood and adolescence in the town. But as far as anyone knew, he hadn't been back to Neptune since.

Logan smiled a bit sheepishly as he started up the walk towards the house. He was dressed casually in flip-flops, board shorts, and a faded grey t-shirt. His hair was darker than she remembered it, slightly longer but still looking disheveled.

Veronica just stared at him as if she was frozen in time, clutching her coffee cup so hard that her knuckles turned white. She was still in her pajamas, a loose pair of light cotton drawstring pants and a simple blue tank top. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun and she wasn't wearing a bra—she had filled out a bit over the years, not much but enough that she was immediately self-conscious of wearing so little. She would not have chosen this outfit to be wearing the first time she saw her ex-boyfriend in three years.

"Well, it looks like the two of you are up to no good, as usual," Logan said jokingly as he stopped to stand at the bottom of the porch steps, clearly unsure of how to break the ice but giving it his best shot.

Wallace moved first. "Hey man! Long time no see!" he said cheerfully, setting down his coffee to shake Logan's hand.

"Hey Wallace, it's good to see you," Logan said, flicking his eyes over to Veronica. There was a beat of silence, and then he said, "Hello, Veronica."

Veronica just stared at him. She had barely moved since she had recognized him in the Land Rover.

"Wow, look at the time!" Wallace said, scooping up his mug and the empty French press. "I really have to, uh, go work on something for a bit. I'll let you two catch up."

"Later, man," Logan said to Wallace's retreating back, then returned his gaze to Veronica.

She set down her mug, finally, as the front door shut behind Wallace, but continued to stare at Logan.

"So… are you gonna sit there in silence all day or are you gonna get up and give me a hug?" he said, his nervousness apparent in his voice.

Veronica stood up and walked down three steps until her face was level with Logan's.

"Logan," she said quietly, staring into his eyes, and suddenly she felt herself being pulled to his chest, held there tightly by his arms, but not so tightly that should couldn't wrap her how arms around him.

For a moment she just let the feel of him sink into her. He smelled the same. He looked slightly older, his chest was broader than it had been the last time she'd seen him, but the feel of him was the same. Her entire nervous system was on fire all of a sudden, competing with the alarm bells going off in her brain for her attention.

She felt his breath near her left ear sending tingles down her spine as he whispered, "I missed you so much, Veronica."

She pulled back, letting her arms drop to her side. "Logan. What in the hell are you doing here? Where have you been? I mean, I know you've been in New York, but why didn't you just call me, or email me, or… or anything besides showing up here unannounced? How did you even know I would be here?"

Logan smiled widely and she her heart nearly exploded from the joy she felt at seeing that grin again. "I'm not even back for five minutes and you're already grilling me?" he teased.

She blushed, partly because she knew he could still read her so easily and partly from the awareness of his touch, which lingered for a moment before he pulled his hands away. "Seriously, Logan. It's been what, three years since we've seen each other?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Three years. I just… I'm in town for work briefly, I thought I would stop by and see if you were here. I know you just graduated from Hearst so there was a chance you'd still be around."

She smiled, shaking her head. "Of course, you just randomly showed up, hoping I'd be here. You've got good timing, actually. I'm moving to Philadelphia soon to start graduate school. Another few weeks and I would have been gone."

She felt his gaze travel down her body and then slowly come back up to her eyes. She felt his awareness of her as if his hands were on her, not just his eyes. She had always been able to feel him that way, to sense him.

"Veronica, I—," he started to say, and then stopped, searching for words. Their eyes locked in silence for what felt like an eternity. He broke the gaze to glance back at his car and then turned back to her. "Look, Veronica, this is going to sound like it's coming out of nowhere—and it is, I didn't plan this—but what are you doing for the next few days?"

Her eyes widened in surprise and confusion. "Uh, the next few days? Not much, really. My dad is in Mexico working on a case. Wallace and I are spending time being lazy before we head off into the real world. Why?"

She saw Logan's eyes light up. "Do you want to come to Big Sur with me? I know it sounds crazy, but it's not. I'm finished with what I need to take care of here in Neptune and I was going to drive up the coast and enjoy the California sunshine before I head to Scotland for a writing fellowship. I booked a room at a B&B up there for myself, I can book you a room too. I'm not trying to seduce you, I promise. I just think this could be a great chance for us to catch up."

Veronica was about to say no when she stopped for a moment and checked in with herself. She had always been good at following her gut instincts, and her instincts were listening to her heart this time, not her head. Here he was, standing in front of her, the man she had loved and let go three years before, asking her to go on a spontaneous road trip up the coast to Big Sur. He saw it as a good chance for them to catch up, and her curiosity was piqued. Why now, and why like this, instead of just picking up the phone and calling her? She knew, though, that the phone had never been their best mode of communication. Being in his physical presence again was reminding her of what she'd forced herself to forget over the years—they communicated with so much more than words, it was like their bodies had some special language between them that went beyond romance to their very cores.

"Yes," Veronica said. "Yes, I'll go to Big Sur with you."

Logan grinned incredulously. "Really? You'll seriously go?"

She smiled. "Yeah. You're right. We have a lot to catch up on. And I'd like to enjoy California as much as I can before I move to the east coast. Were you planning on leaving right away?"

He couldn't stop smiling. "Uh, yeah. Well, I was going to stop here first and say hi, and then get going. Nice to have an escape route out in case…"

"In case what?"

"Come on, Veronica, you know we didn't end things on the best terms. I came here fully expecting you to slam the door in my face. If you were even here in the first place. I just… I couldn't be in Neptune without seeing if you were here too."

Veronica reached her hand out and grabbed his, pulling him up the stairs. "Come inside for a few minutes while I go and get some things together. Do you want some coffee?"


	3. Chapter 3

Thirty minutes later, they were on the road. Logan looked over at the tiny blonde in his passenger seat and could hardly believe it. When he'd turned his Land Rover onto Veronica's street this morning he wasn't sure what the outcome would be. Maybe she wouldn't be home at all. Maybe he could just leave and she'd never know he was there. But as soon as he'd seen her hair shining in the sun and the smile on her face as she laughed with Wallace he knew he was committed. He had to see her.

He'd been away for a long time. He knew that. He'd done it on purpose, really. After the fight with Gory Sorokin at the end of his freshman year at Hearst he knew he had to get out of Neptune and clear his head in a major way. His love for Veronica was destroying him, and it was clear that she didn't need him around anymore. Well, she did need him, to protect her from the danger she was always getting herself into, but all of that protecting was getting really dangerous—for him. She didn't love him. She had moved on. He had to get away and figure out who he was without her.

New York had been an easy choice to make. He still had the family apartment there and he had been in touch with a creative writing professor at Columbia who, after seeing some short stories he had been working, pulled some strings to get him transferred in. He wanted to go to New York and figure out his life away from Neptune, away from Veronica. He had no chance at a happy, fulfilling life unless he did. So he moved to New York and he wrote. He wrote days and nights, his ideas pouring onto the page, exploring the whole range of human emotions through his stories. And somehow, still completely surprising to him, his writing was good. People wanted to read it. People bought his books and read his articles. He had an advance on his next book and he was about to move to Edinburgh for six months to work on it.

Two weeks after he graduated from Columbia and a week before he was supposed to leave for Scotland, Logan got a call from the Echolls family lawyers in Neptune about a small detail of his mother's estate. Usually when he got these calls he worked out the issue over the phone, but before he knew what he was saying he had told them he would come in person to deal with the matter. Some part of his subconscious was telling him to go to Neptune.

And to Neptune he went. He hadn't been to California in a while, and after he met with the lawyers he decided to drive up the coast to Big Sur, one of his favorite places in the world. He enjoyed the drive itself, especially the parts along the Pacific Ocean, and he figured the seven or so hours between Neptune and Big Sur would give him some time to remember the good parts about the place where he grew up. Maybe he would even pick up a surfboard and catch some waves along the way.

Instead he had picked up Veronica. Well, he could pick up a surfboard too, but with Veronica in his car, he didn't really want to do anything besides be with her. Just looking at her, breathing in her smell again, was almost too much for his system. Their earlier embrace had been like a shock to his heart, and he had felt his cock jump in response to her as well. He knew the lust he felt for here was still present the moment he had seen her sitting on the porch in the sun. It was like all the time and space between them collapsed and he was a horny nineteen-year-old again in the presence of the woman he desired more than anything else in the world.

Luckily he'd managed to control himself and didn't scare Veronica off with his burst of lust. It had clouded his vision and by the time the fog had lifted he was in the middle of asking her to come with him to Big Sur. He was sure she would refuse, so her positive response threw him for a loop. And here they were now, weaving through the streets of Neptune towards the interstate.

"You can put on some music if you want," he said as he navigated the streets he still remembered so well.

Veronica looked over at him. "Logan, I…" she began, but paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry—," she said.

At the same time Logan said, "I'm sorry—," too and after a brief moment they both burst out laughing.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Veronica," Logan continued.

"What are you talking about?" she asked. "I was a jerk to you the last time we saw each other. I just… I feel really bad about not reaching out over the years."

Logan watched the road and shook his head. "Look, Veronica, I'm the one who should be apologizing to you. It's not like I reached out either."

Veronica frowned as she scrolled through the songs on her iPod. "I don't like the way we left things. I was so angry with you at the time, I just couldn't deal with it. I had to compartmentalize and block everything out."

Logan looked at her. "By compartmentalizing with Piz?"

"That's not what I meant and you know it," she said.

He gave a short laugh. "Actually, I don't know it, because I don't know anything about your life anymore. I mean, you're moving to Philly for school, but what else?"

"Why the sudden burst of curiosity?" she replied. "After three years of no contact, why the sudden desire for a trip down memory lane? Or should I say, a trip up the highway?"

He was quiet for a moment. "I don't know. I don't know why. I just felt like I needed to come out here for some reason, and then I felt like I needed to see you, and here we are."

"Here we are," she agreed. She finally chose a song—"Thunder Road" by Bruce Springsteen—and clicked play.

Logan laughed as he heard the song start. "Excellent choice, Mars. A song about running away with the boy who comes to tempt you off the porch."

She smiled and he could tell she was glad he had sensed the reference, glad to feel their old style of banter emerging so naturally already. "You ain't a beauty but hey you're alright," she sang along with the lyrics, and Logan raised his eyebrows.

"Are you saying I'm not pretty?" he asked, and he felt it the moment she heard the phrase and remembered the last time she'd heard a variation of it in the back of his Xterra, right before he told her that he was in love with her, and before gunshots rang out and began to push them away from each other.

Emotion flooded her eyes for a moment before she laughed and said, "Boy am I glad you're not driving that hideous yellow monster anymore. Whatever happened to it?"

"Three years to catch up on and you want to talk about my old car?" he asked. Typical Veronica, changing the subject away from the serious as soon as possible. "Look," he continued, "Why don't we do this in a semi-organized fashion that will also make the drive go faster. Because I know you won't tell me anything about yourself unless I drag it out of you. So considering this dragging. We each have to summarize, for the other, what we've been up to for the last three years."

She glanced out the window for a second, and then turned back to him. "Ok."

"Ok? Ok then," he said as he drove onto the interstate on-ramp, going north.

And so they did, filling the next few hours with their stories. It amazed them both how the time flew by as they talked. After some initial nervousness on her part she began to open up and found herself laughing as she told Logan about her years at Hearst. Things had become decidedly less exciting after their freshman year, but with that quite came time for Veronica to enjoy being a regular college student. Her notoriety had faded and she was able to focus on her studies.

She even told him about how her romance with Piz had ended during the summer he left Neptune. He couldn't believe she was opening up to him like that. The Veronica he remembered would have kept her love life guarded. Not that he minded, of course. He hadn't expected her relationship with Piz to last very long. Piz would never be enough for Veronica, would never challenge her in the ways she needed to be challenged in order to thrive. Even though he wasn't surprised, he still liked to hear that it had ended.

He countered with his own story, figuring that if she was opening up to him, he owed her the same. He told her about Alex, the girl he had met in New York in one of his creative writing classes. He didn't say that much—he wasn't going to give the gory details of his sex life to his ex-girlfriend—but he wanted Veronica to know that he hadn't been pining away for her all this time. He wanted her to see that he had become his own person. He and Alex had dated for two years, splitting up about eight months before he found himself back in Neptune. He had loved her—he always loved the women in his life—but things had ended when Alex realized he didn't want to settle down with her. He was 22, of course he didn't want to settle down, but Alex dreamed of moving in together and starting a life after graduation and he just wasn't ready for that. He told himself it had nothing to do with his unresolved feelings for Veronica, but now that he was in the car with her he wasn't so sure about that.

They continued to talk, laughing about some stories and commiserating over others. They were both at a time in lives when they were figuring out how to be adults. College was over, it was time to grow up. But even with responsibility looming on the horizon, Logan felt the energy buzzing in both of them, the excitement about seizing the day and making time for an old friend. They were old lovers too, of course, but he knew they had to build up a friendship again first before anything else happened. An image of Veronica laying beneath him on a crisp white bed flashed into his mind and he had to force his mind to shut that train of thought down. He didn't want to risk pushing Veronica away by seeming too eager.

They reached Big Sur in the early evening, staring out at the incredible ocean view as they drove across the Bixby Bridge. The summer evening would stretch on with daylight for several more hours, so instead of heading straight to the B&B they found a place to turn off the highway and hike down to the beach. They'd eaten a late lunch and wouldn't be hungry for dinner for a while, so they grabbed a few things and headed down the trail.

Veronica had changed into a simple cotton sundress in a shade of dark blue that made her eyes sparkle. She was breathtaking, he thought, more beautiful than he remembered. He followed behind her as she made her way down the trail towards the water, feeling a jolt of desire at the sway of her adorable little ass in her sundress. It was all he could do not to reach out and pull her to him. He suppressed the urge and reminded himself he had to be tame.

They strolled along the beach until they found a place to pause and enjoy being in such a gorgeous place. Logan leaned back against a rock and watched as Veronica walked towards the water, her shoes now in her hands and she allowed her feet to get wet. He wanted to join her but he wasn't sure how to proceed. Again, he felt the strong desire to touch her. Hell, he'd been feeling that desire pretty much non-stop since he first fell for her. Being away from her for so long had helped, but only because she wasn't in close proximity to him. But now he was right back to square one.

Veronica returned from the water and walked towards him, absentmindedly rubbing her fingers over a small rock she had found. She walked until she stood right in front of him, framed by the ocean behind her.

"I'd offer you a penny for your thoughts, but I don't have a penny, so here's a rock instead," she said, taking his left hand and putting the rock into his palm. It was warm from her touch. Her fingers lingered in his hand and he looked down into her blue eyes.

"You want to know what I'm thinking right now?" he asked, the tone of his voice suggesting that they were in dangerous territory.

"Yes," she said, her voice a whisper as his eyes held hers.

The tickle of her fingers in his palm pushed him over the edge and he couldn't hold out any longer. He pulled her to him by the wrist and lowered his mouth to hers, catching her bottom lip and drinking in the taste of her. He hesitated for a moment, unsure of what her response would be, and then he felt her arms twining behind his neck and her mouth moving on his as she deepened the kiss. His arms went around her waist and he pulled her onto her tiptoes as they ravished each other's mouths. Their tongues tangled, their teeth clicked, her hands crept into his hair and his hands moved down to her ass. They would have kept going if a family with a dog hadn't walked by just then, distracting them with the noises of shouting children.

They broke apart and just started at each other, and he was reminded of their first kiss outside the Camelot Motel in Neptune. They'd broken apart then in a state of shock, unsure of what had just happened and what it meant about their relationship. There wasn't shock this time—this time Logan already knew exactly how good kissing Veronica felt—but there was the element of the unknown between them. They couldn't deny their attraction to each other, but where would it lead this time?

Veronica moved next to Logan to lean back against the same rock. Much to his surprise, she reached out and took his hand, in which he still held the rock she had given him.

"Logan, listen—," she began.

"I know what you're going to say," he interrupted, his stomach already plummeting.

"Do you?" she asked.

He held the hand she had given him in both of hers, the rock cradled between their palms. "Yeah, I do. You're going to tell me we can't do this."

She caught her bottom lip with her teeth. "Well, you're partially right."

He shook his head and began to pull his hands away but she held on. "No, Logan, I'm serious, look at me."

He looked into her eyes and saw something there that he hadn't expected. There was a fire in her eyes, and noticing it caused his heart rate to speed up.

"Logan, we can't get back together after seven hours in a car together and a kiss on the beach. We're both heading in different directions in life right now. I'm starting school, you're going to Scotland… It just wouldn't work."

He nodded his head in understanding. He knew she was right. As much as his heart was telling him to pull Veronica into his arms and never let her go, he knew he had to continue on his path and she had to continue on hers.

He swallowed and said, "I know, but—"

She put her other hand on his chest. "Logan, just let me finish, ok?"

He felt her hand through his shirt and knew there was very little chance of him keeping his desire for her in check much longer. He looked at her hand and nodded again, letting her continue.

"We're young, Logan. We've been through a lot, but we're still so young, and we're just getting out lives started. Being with you today has reminded me of how much I love having you in my life. And kissing you… kissing you reminds me of that spark there is between us that apparently never goes away. Look, we're both adults here. Do you think…" She trailed off for a second and she felt him pulling her slightly closer by their joined hands. "Do you think it would be possible for us to enjoy being together, in the moment, and just explore that… that feeling that's between us?"

He slipped the rock into the pocket of his board shorts and slid his hands around to rest on her lower back. "Veronica Mars, are you propositioning me with a no-strings-attached fling? Are you suggesting I take you back to the B&B and cancel the extra room I booked for you?"

She blushed and smiled into his chest, embarrassed. "Well, when you put it that way, I guess I am."

He tilted her head up and kissed her for a long moment before pulling away to look into her eyes again. "By all means, Veronica, have your way with me."

She couldn't help but laugh at his suggestive tone and he pulled her into a fierce embrace, trying to absorb as much of her as he could. He knew their time together was short, and much to his surprise she wanted to make the most of that time, apparently in the same way he did.

They raced back up the trail towards the Land Rover, pausing to fall into another kiss against the passenger door, her back up against glass as his mouth found her neck and she moaned with the pleasure he knew he gave her when he kissed her there.

"How far is it to that B&B?" she asked, sliding her hands around to cup his rear end and pull him into her. He knew she could feel his erection pressing into her stomach as she gave his ass a squeeze.

"About seven miles up the road, I think?" he said into her hair. "We can't get there soon enough."

He released her then, knowing that the sooner they left this parking lot, the sooner they could get to a bed. Not that they needed a bed. He just figured it would be nice to get there and have as much time as possible together in private.

They reached the B&B shortly, pulling into a parking spot and practically running to grab their bags out of the back seat and head for the front desk. Logan quickly checked them in, cancelling the extra room. As soon as he had had the key he grabbed Veronica's hand and headed outside the building toward the small cottage that would be theirs for the night.

As he fumbled with the key in the lock Veronica reached her arms around him from behind, pressing a light kiss into the middle of his back. He finally got the door open and he pulled her inside and spun her around, closing the door and pushing her up against it. They dropped their bags and their hands went to each other. He lifted her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist and he kissed her neck, and then trailed kisses across her face to take her mouth again.

"I want you so badly," he said against her mouth and he felt her smile.

The heat ratcheted up as he felt her hands sliding down to waistband of his board shorts, her delicate fingers grazing over the hardness of his erection. He let her slide down for a moment and he pushed the shorts and the boxer briefs beneath them down until they slid to his feet while she pulled up the hem of her dress and tugged off what appeared to be black bikini underwear.

She tossed the underwear aside and he lifted her back up so her legs came around his and suddenly his erection was pressed against the slick, wet folds that beckoned him. He braced her against the wall and reached down with one hand to lightly caress her clit and he felt a shudder of anticipation go through her.

"Inside me. Now," she said in a breathy voice.

He was all too happy to oblige her. He positioned himself at her entrance and pushed into her slowly until her tight walls wrapped around him and she was full to the hilt with him. They paused for a moment and stared at each other, allowing their bodies to adjust this feeling, so familiar and yet somehow completely new. Then she tightened her legs to pull him deeper and he began to thrust, finding a rhythm of pulling almost all the way out and then sinking himself back into her. She cried out in ecstasy as he began to make love to her and he willed himself to hold back his own passion until he had satisfied her first.

He was about to move his hand down to her clit again when she felt her breathing speed up and she began to grind her pelvis against his with each thrust, and he realized she was going to come soon. He picked up the pace and continued to fuck her against the door, and soon he felt her body tense as she threw her head back and cried out his name amongst a string of expletives. As soon as he heard her moaning his name he began to come too, groaning as he burst inside of her, filling her with his semen until he felt it dripping down onto his balls.

Veronica rested her head against his shoulder as she caught her breath. "Why don't you take me to that bed," she said softly, and for the first time he became aware of the room they were in. It was beautiful. He held her to him and carried her across the room to a king size bed piled high with simple white sheets and pillows. Lifting her off of his still semi-hard cock he laid her down and just drank in the sight of her with her sundress hiked up around her waist and the slick evidence of their lovemaking glistening on her pussy. He leaned over and kissed her.

"Veronica, I didn't even think to put on a condom."

She reached up to touch his face. "It's ok. I'm on the pill and I get tested regularly. I assume you still do too?"

"Of course," he said, kissing her again. He got up for a moment to go into the bathroom and came back with a small washcloth for her to get cleaned up with. He then crawled onto the bed where he could rest on the pillows and pulled her up with him until her head rested on his shoulder, their arms wrapped around each other and their legs twined together.

"God, Veronica," he said as they cuddled, pulling a blanked up over them to ward off the evening chill. "You're still the sexiest thing I've ever seen."

"And you've seen a lot," she said, giggling.

He tapped her lightly on the nose and gazed at her. "All joking aside, you know you've always been…"

"Always been what?" she asked when he didn't continue.

"You've always been the one I dream about. I still can't believe we're in this bed right now without any pants on. I can't believe I just had sex with you against a door. I keep expecting to wake up to reality soon."

She rose up and kissed him softly, pulling him into a slow, leisurely exploration of each other's mouths. They just kissed for a while, tasting each other, and then their hands began to wander and they were both hot and bothered again. Soon he was spreading her thighs wide and and kissing his way down her body to the apex of her thighs. He made love to her with his mouth until he felt her hands pulling his face back up to hers for a kiss.

He knew what she wanted next and he gave her that, sinking his hard cock into her heated depths again. They made love slowly this time, their fingers interlacing. Their eyes held each other's gaze as they moved and he felt like his heart could burst from the joy welling up inside. After a while he held her to him and flipped over until she sat astride him and he watched her as she rode her way to another orgasm, her hands tugging her sundress up and over her head and his hands reaching behind her to unclasp her bra. His hands cupped her breasts, thumbs playing across the tight buds of her nipples, and soon she was coming again, crying out over and over as she spasmed around him. He felt himself erupt inside her and this time he cried out her name as he came.

They fell asleep in each other's arms soon after, their heartbeats slowing down together, and as he drifted off into unconsciousness Logan knew with absolute clarity that he was still in love with Veronica. He wasn't going to tell her that. Yet. But he knew it with his entire being.


	4. Chapter 4

~Present Day, ten years after 3x20~

Veronica stared at Logan in the street outside Zito's Italian restaurant.

"Hey there, bobcat," he'd said. The words rang in her ears as she took him in, slowing tugging the other headphone from her ear.

"Logan Echolls," she said quietly, reaching down to pick up her keys without breaking eye contact with him.

"In the flesh, Dr. Mars," he said.

She looked him up and down, slowly taking in his slim gray chinos—Bonobos, if she knew her menswear correctly—button-down plaid shirt under a soft, dark green sweater. The clothes hugged his frame beautifully and Veronica felt a surge of lust deep in her belly. She knew this feeling well by now. She felt it every time she came across him unexpectedly—which had happened enough over the past ten years that she was sure there must be some cosmic conspiracy steering them across one another's paths.

"Logan, what are you doing here?" she asked, making no move towards him. She was wary. She had cut off all contact with him two years ago and was not prepared to see him in person again, at least not this soon. It was still too soon for her. Of course she shouldn't be surprised. California wasn't that far from Hawaii, and if Logan was visiting Neptune it wasn't unreasonable that he might end up in San Diego. But the chances of him ending up in her neighborhood, outside a restaurant she was going to? Those were slim. Although by now she should know that normal chances don't apply to her and Logan.

"Well, I was craving Italian food, even though every time I eat it I think about a certain lasagna-loving blonde I would like to throttle, and this place had pretty good reviews on Yelp," Logan said.

"You just happen to be outside the same Italian restaurant as me, in my neighborhood, at the exact same time as me? And 'throttle' is quite the charming verb," she replied, bristling at his sarcasm and dishing back some of her own.

"You know I mean it with love," he said, and her spine tingled as he used the word, the echoes of when he had said it to her over the years tumbling back into her mind. She was so careful about keeping all of those memories at bay, and struggled to keep the dam from bursting in her mind and rendering her a victim of her emotions.

"Actually, Veronica, I wasn't standing here waiting for you to come along. As you know, I figured out long ago how detrimental that is for my health. I swear to god that it is by complete chance that we are standing on the same sidewalk right now."

"But you don't seem that surprised," she said. "Did you know I was in San Diego?"

He looked down at his shoes. "Yeah, I knew."

She processed that information. Logan knew she was in San Diego, but he hadn't tried to contact her? Not that she wanted him to. But it would have been normal behavior for him.

"Before you ask your next question—and I know you're going to ask one, because you have that look on your face—I will tell you that I live in San Diego too."

She stared at him incredulously. "You live here too? And you never contacted me?" She cursed herself inwardly for showing that she cared.

He looked at her again. "I moved here a month ago for a job. I found out that you were here, but not until after I had already moved. Don't worry, Veronica, I didn't follow you here like some lost puppy."

She felt ashamed at the disappointment she felt when she heard those last words. Even though she had made it clear two years ago on the beach that she no longer needed him in her life, a tiny part of her wished that Logan would fight for her like he had every time before.

She had pushed him away so many times over the years that they had known each other, it would only make sense that she had finally pushed too hard the last time. She told herself over and over again that it was for the best, that he was better off without her in his life. But no matter how many times she said this to herself, she could never erase the memory of the words he had whispered in her ear one night seven years ago in a cottage near Big Sur.

They had been sleeping after making love for the second time. It was always making love with him. Even when it was a quick, rough fuck, with aggressive dirty talk flying between them, it was making love. She didn't know how to be with him without surrendering everything to him. Putting up those walls and making it purely physical were impossible for her.

She had known this when she proposed their night of passion, even as she let him interpret her to mean "no-strings-attached." That was her one way of putting up a wall to protect herself. She would allow herself to feel everything with him, but she wouldn't let him know the full extent of the effect he had on her. He couldn't. It would give him too much power.

Laying in his arms, stirring awake, feeling his hand roam over the curve of her ass as he snuggled closer to her. She realized that he was awake too and she allowed herself to be drawn in for a slow kiss.

When he pulled back, he had looked into her eyes and said, "Veronica, there will never be anything as pleasurable for me in this life as waking up with you naked in my arms. Well, coming inside you while you're coming all over my dick is pretty fucking pleasurable, but you know what I mean."

She was quiet while he said this, although she felt the heat building again between her thighs. She sensed him grow serious all of a sudden, and she recognized that emotional shift in him. She had seen it many times before when they were teenagers. He was such a Pisces.

"Veronica, you're not going to like what I'm going to say, but I'm going to tell you this because there is no way I could ever hide anything from you. I accept your no-strings-attached proposal. I understand that we both have to go do our own thing now, figure out where we want our lives to go. People in this situation normally say things like, 'If we find each other again someday then it was meant to be.' I don't buy that shit.

"You and I will crash into each other again someday, like two trains colliding, because you and I have been on a collision course loop since we were twelve. It will happen, and we'll have to take it as it comes. No matter how hard you and I try to see each other—or try not to see each other, seeing how we haven't been the best at keeping in touch—we're on a crash course to somewhere and we can't stop it. So I will take this night with you, and if I see another opportunity for another night with you somewhere in the future, I will fight for that night like it's my life. I won't expect anything from you, Veronica, but I will fight for you if I can."

Those words had echoed in her mind then and they echoed here again on the street in front of Zito's. Another crash on their collision course. She wasn't sure how many more vehicle accident metaphors they could come up with to describe their relationship.

"I will fight for you if I can."

She'd left him in Hawaii and cut all ties because she'd believed he could no longer fight for her. She'd seen him in front of his house there, kissing a tall brunette on the check and putting his arm around her neck while they watched a small child play in the yard. He looked happy. They looked so domestic together, so contented. It was a life she couldn't offer him, not at this point in her career. When she'd flown here, she'd allowed herself to dream about what it would be like to have his child. Not for a while yet, she still had to finish her fellowship and get a job. But someday, they could have that.

That dream died as soon as she'd seen the tableau in the front yard. He'd already found that life. If she came back into it, she would only cause everyone pain. He didn't deserve that. She'd found him later at the beach by himself, knowing that she would get a chance to talk to him alone, and she had made her exit from his world. Driving to the beach from Logan's house and later to the airport from the beach, she repeated to herself the entire way that if he no longer needed her in his life, she would no longer need him in hers. She could do this.

Back in front of the restaurant, she found her eyes glancing down to his left hand to see if she could catch a glimpse of a wedding ring. She was slightly relieved to see that his hand was bare, but that didn't really man anything.

"So you're in San Diego now. Did you move here… by yourself?"

He looked at her in confusion. "Of course I moved here by myself. They hired me to teach creative writing at UCSD. I jumped at the chance. It's a great job."

She found herself nodding while inwardly she was wondering how the hell she could have missed all of this. She was an observant person. Sure she had tried to forget about Logan, but she thought she would have heard somehow that he was moving back to San Diego, especially at the same time as her.

"Did you think I moved here with someone else?"

"Well, I thought it was with several someone else's, since the last time I checked, you had a family," she replied, the walls coming up behind her eyes again.

Logan closed his eyes for a second, clearly channeling some patience. "The last time you checked? I mean, I assume you have a dossier going on my nefarious activities at all times, but I'm kind of surprised to hear that I have a family I don't know about."

"Logan, when I saw you in Hawaii—"

"When you saw me in Hawaii and you ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped all over it? That time in Hawaii? Is that what you mean?"

"Yes! You know that's what I mean. I saw you in Hawaii with your family, standing in your yard, having a perfect moment together. I saw how good life could be for you without me in it so I took myself out of your life to spare everyone the pain, especially your child."

"My child, Veronica? My child? I don't have any children, Veronica! None! Anywhere around the world! Sure as shit not in Hawaii! Whatever you saw in Hawaii—wait, are you talking about the yard in front of the house on Linden Street?"

She nodded and he closed his eyes again in frustration.

"That was… that wasn't what you thought it was. First of all, that was not my child. That was Evan, the son of my neighbor, Teresa."

"Teresa being the tall brunette? She was your neighbor?" Veronica asked, knowing the direction this conversation was going.

"Yeah, my neighbor. Why did you think she was the mother of my child?"

Veronica steeled herself. "I saw you put your arm around her and kiss her on the cheek."

"I love how it doesn't surprise me that you were spying on me like this."

"I wasn't spying on you. I was there to see you."

"You told me that day on the beach that you were in town for a conference, that you just casually stopped by to check in on me, your reliable old fuck buddy, and that you really needed space. Which is amazing, because having not seen you for the two years between that day and the morning you left me in Geneva, it was hard to give you any more space than I already had."

"You know what I meant by space, Logan!"

"Oh did I? Because you're so great at communicating?"

Their voices had been raised for a while now and finally a couple walked out of Zito's and looked at them with curious concern as Logan and Veronica squared off on the sidewalk.

Veronica knew she'd been caught assuming once again and that her subsequent reactions had only made thing worse. In her younger days she would have stormed off to fume by herself but now that she was almost thirty she knew that it was easier to deal with Logan's anger head-on rather than letting him go off the rails somehow.

"Look, can we take this conversation somewhere private? I'd like to live in my place for at least two weeks before I get banned from a local eating establishment," Veronica said as she reigned in her temper. "I ordered enough lasagna for two, and some salad and garlic bread to go with it, so if you want to hash this out over dinner at my place instead of standing hungry in the street then you're welcome to come up. I live two blocks away."

He looked at her hands, pondering them as though she clutched some kind of olive branch instead of her wallet, and he was always wary of her olive branches. Not for long, of course, but she knew he expected her to do the worst to him in pretty much any situation now.

After a tense moment, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a billfold, peeled off a fifty dollar bill, and handed it to her. "My treat?"

"How about we split the cost?" she said, knowing that was the only way to satisfy both of their egos.

He nodded and she took the bill. "You wait here, I'll be back in a minute with the food."

"Still bossy," he said, and as she walked into the restaurant she heard him sing a line from "Bossy" by Kelis, a song they used to listen to in his Xterra during their freshman year in college. He'd joked with her at the time that he had found her theme song.

She was glad she was facing away from him so he couldn't see the smile that crept across her face. Even when she was infuriated with him he could pull a smile out of her. It infuriated her even more.

The walk back to her apartment from Zito's was tense. Logan had parked near the restaurant and they decided he could just leave his car there for later. She didn't know where this night was going, just that they needed to talk.

She closed her eyes and leaned against the back wall of the elevator as it lifted them up towards her apartment on the sixth floor. She felt like a fool for having assumed Logan had been with that woman in Hawaii, that the child had been his. But she also knew that her assumption was tied up with all kinds of doubts that she had about herself, and doubts she had about Logan, too. He was so happy in Hawaii, happier than she'd ever seen him, really, and she couldn't make a life there if she wanted to be a forensic anthropologist on her terms.

But suddenly he wasn't in Hawaii anymore, he was in San Diego. He lived here. She lived here. He had moved alone.

As if he read her thoughts, he turned to her as they walked out of the elevator and said, "Just so we're clear, I don't have any women in my life right now. Well, I have a cat, a female cat, but that doesn't count. Not really."

She looked at him and almost felt herself smiling. "You have a cat?"

"Gotta talk to something, right? You should consider getting a pet. Helps calms the voices at night."

She rolled her eyes as she stuck her key into her apartment door and twisted, enjoying the joking interlude before they inevitably got back to talking about serious things. She led Logan into her apartment and he took in the scene. She suddenly felt self-conscious. She had never been one for interior decorating, and she was still settling into her new place.

"It's not the Neptune Grand, but it'll do," she said jokingly, setting her keys on a hook near the kitchen and talking him into the living room where a dining nook was off to the side.

Logan had taken the food bags from her hands outside the restaurant and he set them down on the table, noticing the opened bottle of wine on the table with the single glass sitting next to it.

"You know they say it's not good to drink alone," he said.

"Who is 'they'?" she retorted as she reached into a cabinet to get down another wine glass for him.

They fell silent as they set up the table. They both enjoyed eating, and they ate naturally together, they always had. She thought of the midnight feast Logan had conjured from his car in between bouts of lovemaking that night in Big Sur, and then she thought of the delicious meal at the late-night café they'd found in Geneva four years ago. When they were both eating, things were actually peaceful, probably because they both had their mouths full. Not that they wouldn't start arguing with food in their mouths if the provocation was right.

Veronica poured two glasses of the Chianti she had opened earlier and she saw Logan noting the label appreciatively. He was a connoisseur, although he didn't push it on others. She had learned a lot about wine from him, she realized. He was the one who had first shown her how delicious a good food and wine pairing could be. She'd chosen the Chianti in anticipation of ordering Italian food later.

Logan unpacked the food from the bags and made himself at home in Veronica's kitchen, finding plates and cutlery while she fished some napkins. She saw some candles in the drawer and laughed at herself for almost considering lighting them. This conversation wouldn't be enhanced by candlelight.

She turned around to find Logan watching her. She gestured towards a chair. "Have a seat. We might as well eat before we really start screaming at each other."

He held her gaze as he sat and took the glass of wine she handed to him. "You know, Veronica, every time I think I understand you, I only end up feeling like an idiot later for thinking I knew how your mind worked. So this time I'm not going to even pretend I know what's going on inside that mind. If you're going to let me eat before screaming, I'll take it."

They were quiet for a few minutes as they ate. Veronica wasn't as hungry as she had been before now that she had Logan in her house, but the food was good enough that she wanted to eat at least some of it.

After she'd finished half of her lasagna and part of her salad, she set down her knife and fork and watched Logan chew on a mouthful of salad. His eyes met hers as he swallowed, and he set down his knife and fork as well.

"Why didn't you tell me you were in San Diego? If you knew we were in the same city—working on the same campus, for gods sake—why didn't you get in touch?" she asked him.

She watched a muscle near his jawline twitch while he decided what to say. She wondered what it would be—sarcasm or sincerity?

"I got here a month ago," he began. "I found out you were here too when I ran into Weevil."

"You ran into Weevil? Where?" she asked.

"At the gas station outside Neptune. Yeah, I know, it sounds random. But I was out that way and he was there in the parking lot, buckling his kid into the back seat of his car. His kid is, like, seven or eight now, can you believe that?"

She could believe that. She got a Christmas card complete with family photo from Weevil and his wife Carmen every year.

"We were just catching up, you know, for a few minutes, and when I told him I'd moved to San Diego he told me you had just moved here too. He told me about your job. It sounds like he sees your dad."

"Yeah, they keep in touch," Veronica replied, silently cursing Weevil for revealing her secrets and then realizing that they weren't secrets, they were basic life facts. And Logan has as much of a right to know them as anyone else. "So you knew I was here, and you knew I was teaching at UCSD, and you didn't say anything?"

Logan took a sip from his wine glass. "Based on our last conversation, and the fact that I've heard nothing from you since then, when I realized we were in the same city I thought you might not be thrilled at the prospect of seeing me. I figured I would wait a little while until I got in touch. Let us both settle into our lives here. Honestly, I figured we might run into each other at some point, but I didn't go out of my way to find you, I swear. Although now I know to avoid Zito's."

She felt a pain near her heart at the tone of his voice. He hadn't found her because he hadn't been actively looking. In fact, it sounded like he preferred to avoid her if possible.

"Well, you found me," she said quietly, not sure what to say next. She used to always have a snappy comeback for him, but something about his demeanor this time was different from the other times she'd run into him. In Big Sur he had been loving and open with her, celebrating youth and spontaneity and reveling in the physical joy they brought each other. They didn't discuss the emotional joy, and when he'd dropped her off at her house the next evening before heading to the airport for his red-eye flight to New York, he'd kissed her on the cheek and said, "Until the next train wreck, bobcat."

That train wreck had happened in Geneva. She'd been visiting the city on a brief holiday away from the Max Planck Institute, where she was finishing up her research before heading back to Philadelphia to write her dissertation. It was spring and the weather was nice, so after exploring a few museums she had found herself walking along a bridge over the Rhone and looking down into the water. She felt someone walking towards her and when she looked over to her right there was Logan, standing there grinning with a camera around his neck.

He'd been smiling then, offering himself to her openly like he had so many times before. They'd been in sporadic touch since Big Sur, but neither had mad the move to see the other. This chance encounter felt serendipitous, and if anyone could get her caught up in the romance of a serendipitous moment it was Logan.

He's been smiling in Hawaii too, until she'd begun to speak and he heard the words coming out of her mouth. "I can't do this anymore. We're better off if we just stop… this," she had said, and she had ignored his questions about what "this" was as he chased after her, ditching his surfboard and following her as she walked to her car. She had made up her lie about being in Hawaii for a conference and just casually looking for him, and before he could get in another word she had driven off, cutting the cord by leaving him in the parking lot staring after her, wondering what the hell had just happened.

She'd put out the fire in his eyes that day, she realized. The fire that had always been there when he looked at her was gone, replaced by a mocking skepticism. It reminded her of the way he had looked at her before they had fallen in love junior year of high school, when he had been so cruel to her in his grief over Lilly and his frustration with Veronica and her support of her father's investigation of the Kanes. He had changed a lot since then, she knew, but she recognized the defensiveness in his eyes.

"Yeah, I found you," he replied, bringing her out of her mind and back to the table in her apartment, eyes locked with his across half-eaten plates of lasagna.

"I don't know what to say," she said as she stood up to take her plate into the kitchen.

"Well, you could start with, 'Here's why I stalked you in Hawaii and pretended I was at a conference, Logan,'" he suggested, and she felt how bitter he was.

"Fine, I'll start with that," she said, grabbing her wine glass and marching towards the sitting area in her living room. She sat down on the couch and decided she would be as straightforward as possible without revealing the whole truth to him.

"I flew to Hawaii after I defended my dissertation and graduated from Penn. I was heading to Germany in a few months to start a fellowship, but I felt lost after I graduated. I had just turned twenty-seven and I'd been focused on my work for so long that when I suddenly didn't have to work for brief time, I was left alone with my thoughts and I started to drive myself crazy. I had some money saved up, and I had always wanted to go to Hawaii, and…and I knew you were there."

He got up and walked over to sit at the other end of the couch. "You knew I was there. Did you just fly in, make a wrong assumption about my love life, and then leave? Or did you get to see some of the sights first and make a nice vacation out of it?"

She smiled wryly at him. "Don't worry, I got in two nights at a spa retreat in Maui. And did I make a wrong assumption, Logan? I mean, I know now that the child wasn't yours, but you were kissing that woman on the cheek in a way that felt more than sisterly." She held up her hand as she saw his lips twitch and said, "Stop before you say something snarky like 'You're cute when you're jealous.'"

He just smiled and kept quiet, but she tried to read his eyes and found herself shut down by his defensive barriers.

"Logan, to be honest, I didn't have a clear idea of why I was there. I just felt like I needed to see you. Regardless of my interpretation of it, you at least owe me an explanation of what I saw."

He nodded. "Teresa was my neighbor. She's a single mom, Evan's dad is a deadbeat. We got friendly. Not that friendly," he said when Veronica's eyebrows shot up. "We made out a few times. She had a crush on me. And you know me, a pretty girls smiles at me and you know how touchy-feely I can get. But it never went anywhere. Her kid was great but she wasn't ready to date anyone after her breakup with her kid's dad, and I certainly wasn't ready for a step-kid. We stayed friends. We still are friends. I won't apologize for it, Veronica."

Veronica looked into her wine glass like it was a magic eight ball that could help her decide what to say next. "You don't owe me an apology, Logan."

"Do you owe me an apology?"

"I don't know, do I?" she snapped back, and immediately regretted it. "I'm sorry, Logan. I'm sorry I made an assumption—"

"You made an 'ass out of u and me' for what, the millionth time in our relationship?" he interrupted.

She bristled. "If you're going to be a dick about it then I'll take my apology back."

He sighed. "I'm sorry. That was a dick thing to say. God, can I get through one encounter with you without having to apologize for something?"

Veronica got up from the couch and retrieved the wine bottle from the table, refilling both of their glasses. "Logan, I don't know what else to tell you. I made a snap judgment, but maybe it was for the best anyway. You were so happy there. I just felt like the direction I was heading in—I was moving back to Germany, which is about as far as you can get from Hawaii, right? We already agreed that the long distance thing wouldn't work for us."

Logan considered her for a long moment before responding. "You decided that the long distance thing wouldn't work for us, with very little input from me, five years before you found me in Hawaii. Did it even occur to you that things could change in five years? That you and I could grow and change and that things could be different between us?"

"You agreed with me in Big Sur, Logan," Veronica said.

"I let you tell me what to do in Big Sur, Veronica, because I would have jumped off the fucking Bixby Bridge if you'd told me to. Do you not see how much power you held over me?"

She shuddered at his reference to jumping off a bridge—his mother had died that way—and also at his use of the past tense of the verb "held." Her power over him was in the past, apparently.

"Look, what does it even matter, anyway?" she said, suddenly angry. "Whatever happened in the past, we live in the same city and work at the same place and we're probably going to see each other again sooner rather than later, so we might as well decide how to do so peacefully."

Logan drained his wine glass and set it down on the coffee table. He moved down the couch until he was sitting close to her, his leg brushing hers. She was immediately aware of the contact between their bodies, the familiar sparks flying up her thigh.

He didn't say anything for a moment. Then he took her chin in his hand and forced her to make eye contact with him. "How typical of you, Dr. Mars," he said with a quiet fierceness as he considered her face. "How typical of you to decide to ditch the conversation wherein we actually discuss the shit we've done to each other in the past and say we should just move on and go about our humdrum little San Diego lives."

She opened her mouth to respond but she couldn't because he was tilting her head towards his and suddenly he was kissing her, and he wasn't doing it gently. She felt their lips collide and his arms flew around her, gripping her tightly. Suddenly she was on fire, the spark she had felt earlier igniting into a full-on bonfire as they clutched at each other, her hands reaching around his torso.

He pulled his mouth from hers and she was about to protest until she realized he was moving down the column of her neck and pushing aside the neck of her hoodie to her on her collarbone. She slid her hands down until her fingers dipped the tips of her fingers inside the waistband of his pants to toy with the hem of his shirt. Her breasts tingled as she felt his breath on her neck and down the v-neck of the t-shirt she wore underneath her hoodie and she felt her mind shutting down and her animal instincts taking over like they always did when Logan kissed her.

And the all of a sudden she was sitting on the couch alone and Logan was standing before her. Her breath came quickly and she stared at him as he reached out to zip her hoodie back up and then tucked the back hem of his shirt back into his pants. He pick up the wine bottle on the table and poured the remainder of the Chianti into her wine glass before setting the bottle down.

"You want your peace, I'll give you your peace. I'll see you around, Veronica," he said, and then he was walking to her door and letting himself out. She sat frozen there for a few seconds before she crumpled into a ball on the couch and proceeded to cry her eyes out. She managed to make it to her bed eventually and when she had cried out all the tears she could possible cry, she fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming that she was searching a massive beach for a small rock she had misplaced and couldn't seem to find.


	5. Chapter 5

_~~~Flashback: Four years before present, set six years after 3x20~~~_

Logan was seeing things, he was sure of it. Except he wasn't, because of course he was randomly coming across Veronica. The ongoing train wreck. Here he was in Switzerland, another stop on the self-guided tour of Ernest Hemingway's Europe that he had decided to embark on and write about the year before. He had planned a touristy day walking around Geneva with his camera, exploring the waterfront and jotting thoughts down in his Moleskine notebook.

As he was making his way across a bridge over the Rhone he saw her, bundled up in a jacket and scarf to ward off the chill spring air, staring over the bridge into the water. He knew better than to question his luck. He hadn't seen Veronica in three years. They'd kept in touch sporadically since their road trip to Big Sur, but it wasn't much—if he got an email from her once a year he counted himself lucky, and she wasn't one to update her Facebook page very frequently.

He knew she was busy. She was in the middle of doing her PhD, which took a lot of time and energy. And when Veronica chose to focus on something, she focused with her entire being. So he wasn't hurt that she didn't contact him frequently. After their trip to Big Sur he had been on a giddy high for a few months, amazed that she had proposed their night together and given herself to him in ways he knew were difficult for her. He hoped that if she could open up like that to him for even such a brief time that maybe, in the future, he had a chance of getting her back for good.

He had decided to be patient about this. They were figuring out their lives. They'd been 22 in Big Sur, and they were 25 now, both in the early stages of their careers. He liked to think of this Hemingway tour as his "quarter-life crisis." Sure, his literary agent had already sold the proposed book of essays based on the trip to Little, Brown and Company, so his "crisis" came with a healthy advance to fund the traveling. He'd been on the road for about four months, having spent a few weeks each in London, Paris, Berlin, Spain, and Brussels. He'd added Switzerland to the itinerary after re-reading  _A Farewell to Arms_.

After a few days of exploring off-the-beaten-path he'd decided to dive in for a day of tried and true sight-seeing. He did this in every city he visited. Sure he was looking for the dark shadows that inspired Hemingway, but he was still Logan—thankfully a much happier person than Hemingway had been—and he liked walking around snapping pictures as much as the next tourist.

He spotted her first through his camera. He had been framing a shot across the bridge, deciding whether or not to include the people on the overlook in the photo, when he recognized the angle of her cheek and her diminutive height next to a tall couple on the overlook. He had lowered his camera as his heartbeat sped up, feeling simultaneously amazed at the chances of finding her there and remembering what he'd said to her in Big Sur about how they would crash into each other again, they just didn't know where that would happen.

It was happening now, in Geneva. He recognized the pensive look on her face as he approached her and he wished he could see inside her mind to know what she was thinking. She heard him coming and the look on her face when she turned her head and recognized him was so priceless he wished he could snap a picture of it with his camera.

"Of all the bridges over the Rhone River, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine," he said as he stopped next to her, and his heart swelled as she smiled and laughed at his modification of the line from  _Casablanca_.

"Logan," she said as she allowed him to pull her in for a hug, his camera between them making their embrace slightly awkward. "What are you doing here?"

He drank in the scent of her before pulling back. "I could ask the same of you, but I'll oblige you first. I've been touring around Europe, working on a book project. A "young writer explores Hemingway's haunted past" kind of thing. I thought I'd check out Switzerland and figure out why he wrote the most depressing ending ever in  _A Farewell to Arms_."

Veronica chuckled. "More depressing than the ending of  _The Old Man and the Sea_?"

He laughed. He loved how smart she was, that she could keep up with him at every line. "Yeah, I guess rating the depressingness of Hemingway story endings is a bit of a silly exercise."

A breeze blew up from the water and a loose tendril of blonde hair blew across Veronica's eyes. Before he knew what he was doing, Logan reached out and tucked it back behind her ear so he could continue to have an uninterrupted view of her face. He felt the jolt of electricity between them as his finger brushed the skin of her face, and from the look in her eyes he knew she felt it too.

"So what are you doing here, Veronica?" he asked, tucking his hand back into his pocket.

"I've been working on some research in Germany at the Max Planck Institute," she said. "It's for my dissertation. I fly back to Philadelphia next week and I had a few free days so I figured I would take the chance to see some of Europe before I leave."

"And you chose Geneva?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I've always wanted to see Geneva, and Switzerland is so close to Germany. Also it's nice to get away from all the hardcore science for awhile and just look at artwork in museums."

Logan laughed and shook his head. "Veronica Mars needs a break from her studies? I'm amazed you are admitting that."

She blushed a little and he wondered if he had touched a nerve. "Believe it or not, Logan, I'm figuring out how to have a work-life balance. Turns out that helps when it comes to staying sane."

"I'm glad to hear it," Logan replied, and then he got to the question he really wanted to ask. "Are you here by yourself?"

She paused for a minute to look at the water and then returned her eyes to his. "Yeah, I'm here on my own. You know me, when I want to do something I just go and do it. Waiting around for someone else isn't really my style."

What he really wanted to ask was whether there was a significant "someone else" in her life. They hadn't seen each other in almost three years, and in that time he certainly hadn't been celibate. He didn't party and womanize like he had in his younger days but there was certainly no shortage attractive women in New York who wanted to get to know a handsome and successful male writer. He'd even seen a bit of his ex-girlfriend Alex, although she knew better than to try and start a relationship with him.

When they'd been together in Big Sur Logan had realized he was still in love with Veronica, and while he didn't like to phrase it that way, he supposed that he was still in love with her now. It wasn't a stable, settle-down-and-get-married kind of love. Even if he had been in that mindset he knew she certainly wouldn't be any time soon, if ever. It was a deep-down, instinctual kind of love. He'd felt a connection with Veronica ever since they met when they were twelve, and after trying to destroy her in the aftermath of Lilly's death he fallen for her in a way that he had never recovered from.

"Are you here alone too?" he heard her ask, and he shook himself from his thoughts. He noted the tone of her voice—slightly nervous? Was she wondering the same thing about him as he was about her?

"Uh, yeah, I am. I've been on this trip for awhile, not really conducive to having a travel buddy. Kind of a 'quarter-life crisis' tour of a dead author's nightmares. Cheerful writing doesn't sell, you know?"

She shrugged. "I liked the piece you wrote in the Atlantic last year about young people working on election campaigns," she said. "That was kind of hopeful in a way, if not outright cheerful."

He was amazed. "You read that?"

She smiled and her forehead crinkled a little, as if she was surprised that he didn't know she read his work. "Of course I read it," she said. "I read all of your stuff."

"Really?"

She laughed. "What are you so surprised? You're like this wunderkind. I drop your name to get street cred with people."

"You do not," he replied.

She grinned. "Ok, you're right, I don't. But I do read your work. You're a great writer, Logan."

He didn't want to reveal the effect her words had on him. He'd always assumed that she was too busy to read anything that wasn't related to her own work. But whenever he published something, a small part of him hoped that Veronica would see it and that through his writing he could show her glimpses the life he had made for himself. It was a strange bind to be in, wanting to prove to the woman he loved that he had a life without her, but he supposed it was natural to want to establish one's self-sufficiency. Veronica didn't tolerate needy people.

"Thanks, Veronica. It means a lot to hear you say that," he said. He looked out and gestured at the view. "Look, I don't know how long you're in Geneva for, but do you want to walk around with me for a bit? I'm just exploring the waterfront, playing tourist. How long are you here?"

Veronica gazed out at the view with him. "I'm just in town for the night, actually. I stopped on my way back from Marseille. My train leaves tomorrow at six am. I have a bunk in a hostel and was just planning on exploring the city and eventually finding a delicious place to eat some dinner."

"Typical Veronica, thinking of food before anything else," he joked, and she smiled.

"It'll be hard to beat the food in the south of France but I'm willing to let the chefs of Geneva try to impress me," she said.

"I've been in town for almost a week now and I've found some excellent places that definitely aren't in your guide book. Do you trust me?"

Now that was a loaded question, and he saw her shoulders tense up. Had she ever trusted him? He clarified the question for her benefit: "Do you trust me to guide you to the best meal you can find in Geneva?"

Her shoulders relaxed. "You do know my tastes pretty well," she said. "And I'd be happy to join you on a walk around the city. I was just hitting the guidebook hotspots, which as you have reminded me are not at all hip. Show me where the Geneva hipsters hang out, oh worldly one."

He felt the joy radiating from his heart at her acceptance. He would get another night with Veronica Mars. He had told her, years ago in Big Sur, that he didn't expect anything from her, but that if he had the chance to have another night with her he would fight for it. And here he was, getting that night. He wouldn't go so far as to assume that they would end up in bed together—although he definitely wouldn't mind that—but he would take whatever time with her he could get.

"Before we get started, let me do something," he said, and he turned to ask an older man in his passable French if the man would take a photo of him and Veronica.

The man agreed good-naturedly and Logan showed him which button to press on the camera. He put his arm around Veronica and told the man in French to take two or three photos. They smiled for the few clicks of the shutter and then the man handed his camera back to Logan.

"I didn't know you were such a camera aficionado now," Veronica said as she admired his camera. She was the expert in that realm thanks to her PI days back in Neptune.

"Well you know, I dabble," he replied, and then he reached for her hand. "Are you ready to explore?"

She let him squeeze her hand and lead her away from the side of the bridge to start walking towards land again. "I'm ready," she said.

"Excellent. While we walk you can tell me what the hell you've been up to in the three years since I've seen you. Tell me about this work-life balance."

Veronica sank down into the bistro chair and sighed with the relief of finally being off her feet. They had been walking around Geneva for hours—it was nearly ten at night now and they were just sitting down to have dinner—and while it had been a great way to explore she was happy to rest her legs and get some food. They'd had a bit to eat along the way, stopping for a cappuccino and a croissant at one place and a glass of wine with an appetizer at another, but Logan said he'd been "saving the best for last."

It had been a wonderful day. She'd been surprised to see him on the bridge, but not that surprised. It seemed perfect, in a way. She was getting ready to leave Europe after being there for a few months of research, and it was only natural that her last-minute jaunt to the south of France would end with something like this.

She was at a strange place in life right now. She still had a few years of school ahead of her, although the research trip to Germany had been an exciting break from the nonstop pressure of work at Penn. She had sublet her West Philadelphia apartment to a friend and jumped on a plane to Leipzig as soon as the offer had come.

The timing had been good, for her at least. Not so much for her boyfriend, Tom. Well, she didn't think he was her boyfriend anymore. She hadn't really talked to him about things since she'd left Philly before telling him she was going. She knew this part of her personality, the urge she felt to run as soon as things got emotionally difficult, was frustrating for the people in her life who cared about her. And Tom cared. She cared about Tom too, but she wasn't sure in what capacity anymore.

She'd met Tom during her first semester at Penn. He was a grad student in chemical engineering, and they'd been introduced by a mutual friend at an event at the museum where Veronica worked. Tom had been interested in her from the start, but Veronica kept him at arm's length until the summer after their first year when she was finished with her first year of school and allowed herself a little time for her personal life. Her fellow grad student office-mates had teased her all year long about being married to her work, and finally one night at a party after finals were over she let Tom kiss her when she was a little tipsy.

Tom was stable in a way she didn't know a person could be. He came from an upper middle class background, his parents were still happily married, he'd been educated at the best private schools before going to college at Yale and then straight into graduate school at Penn. He'd wanted to be a chemical engineer ever since he got his first chemistry set and he expected to get a job that paid in the six-figure range as soon as he graduated. He didn't seem to have any inner demons tormenting him, any murdered family members, or any of the baggage the men in her life typically had.

Veronica marveled that a person's life could be so straightforward, and the sheer novelty of having someone like that in her life was a big part of her attraction to Tom. They started dating casually over the summer and by the fall they were starting to get serious. Veronica let it happen. She enjoyed sex and it was nice be in a relationship where she could get to know a person's body and find her pleasure on a regular basis.

The next summer when Tom suggested they move in together she agreed to do so after her lease was up in August, but when the time rolled around she found an excuse to stall. She was on a month-to-month lease now and would move in at the end of September. The end of September became the end of October, the end of October became the end of November, and by the time Veronica got the news that she would be doing research in Germany for the spring semester she thought Tom was finally starting to get the hint that she wasn't actually ready for cohabitation. He tried to push her to commit to moving her things into his place so she could just move in for good when she came back from Germany in May, but she avoided the conversation. She arranged for her friend to sublet her place and got on a plane to Frankfurt before Tom could pin her down and get an explanation out of her.

He'd been frustrated, but his frustration had been stable in the same way the rest of his life was and Veronica found herself wondering if he was passionate about anything in his life. She imagined Logan in Tom's position. She had pushed him away in many ways too, but his feelings in those situations were fiery and palpable. She and Logan hashed things out and then usually ended up tearing each other's clothes off. Tom just shrugged and told Veronica to take the space she needed and they could reevaluate things when she got back in May if she still wanted to be with him.

She knew it wasn't fair to compare Tom with Logan. It wasn't fair to compare anyone in her life with Logan. She looked at Logan now, in a bistro in Geneva, ordering for them in French. She loved hearing him speak French. He didn't do so presumptuously, and his accent was nothing to write home about, but he could speak it enough to get by and she had acquiesced when he asked if she would be ok with him ordering everything and surprising her. He was eager to please her and she figured he could read the menu better than she could. He knew what she liked.

Logan finished ordering and the waiter left to fetch their wine. He smiled across the table at Veronica and she felt her stomach flip, which it had been doing periodically throughout the day when he smiled at her. She had forgotten what it felt like to be seen through Logan's eyes. They had walked around for hours, talking about their lives since they had last seen each other, laughing about the past, getting excited for one another about their respective futures. Logan had clearly been floored by her admission that she read everything he published. He managed to get her to admit to her triumphs in graduate school, the fellowships she'd won and the papers she'd published. They'd also talked about the sights they were seeing, the history of the place. Before they knew it, it was late in the evening and time for the promised amazing meal.

"So, Mars, are you ready for this food? Can you rise to the challenge of eating it?" he said sarcastically.

She rolled her eyes as the waiter returned to pour their wine. "That's a ridiculous question."

She checked her watch to see what time it was and Logan caught her doing so. "You in some kind of rush?" he asked.

"No," she said, "I can stay out all night if I want. I'm just thinking about how early my train is in the morning."

Her suitcase was back at the hostel where she was staying, and technically she could just swing by and fetch her suitcase on the way to the train if she didn't end up back at her hostel tonight. She finally allowed her mind to go there, after being physically aware of Logan all day. She didn't now what she wanted from tonight. They'd been friendly all day, touching the other's arm to make a point, high-fiving each other over a particularly good tourist photo, but neither of them had made a move to go beyond fairly platonic contact.

Logan raised his glass. "Why don't we forget about that train for now and just enjoy being here. Here's to us," he said, gesturing with his glass until she raised hers to clink with his.

"To us," Veronica echoed, and they maintained eye contact as they both drank.

Suddenly a charcuterie and cheese platter was set on the table before them and Veronica felt her mouth water as she looked at the spread before them of thinly sliced meats and cheeses with thinly sliced baguette and olives on the side.

"Logan, this looks amazing," she said as she dove in.

"It's just the beginning,  _ma cherie_ ," he replied.

She eyed him quizzically as she chewed a mouthful of bread, meat, and cheese. "I've been meaning to ask this all day," she said after she swallowed, "But since when do you speak French?"

"Ah, that. Well, a couple years ago in New York, I decided to take a French class. Just for something to do at first, and then when I started thinking about doing this trip, it became more practical. Don't be fooled, though. I am nowhere near fluent."

"You're good enough to get us this food, which makes you my hero," she said, piling more goodies onto her plate.

"I'm your hero again, eh?" Logan asked, his eyes twinkling.

"You know what I mean," she mumbled as she popped an olive into her mouth. She watched him take a bite of his food and found herself staring at his mouth, remembering the things his mouth had done to her the last time they had seen each other. She felt a blush rising to her cheeks and she made a decision.

"I need to be straight with you about something," she said, and she watched Logan's chewing slow down until he seemed frozen.

After a second, he swallowed and said, "Ok…"

"When I left for Germany, I sort of left behind a… well, he used to be a boyfriend, but he wasn't really a boyfriend anymore by the time I left," she blurted out.

Logan took a sip from his wine glass. "And you're telling me this because…"

"I'm telling you this because I want you to know my situation right now. And how that impacts, uh, your situation."

Logan raised his eyebrows and she could tell from the color of his eyes that he was enjoying watching her squirm her way through this. "My situation? This involves my situation? How so, Veronica?" he asked, his light tone teasing a smile to her face.

Veronica took a swig of wine for confidence. "I just want you to know that I'm not… attached to anyone, currently."

She saw his eyes darken with what appeared to be humor and… lust? "And how does this affect my 'situation,' as you put it?"

"It's just that if… if we… if something were to, uh, happen between us…" she trailed off.

Logan reached his right hand across the table and slowly turned her left hand until the palm was facing up. His fingers skimmed across her palm to close lightly around her wrist. An almost bashful smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "What kind of thing could possibly happen between us?" he asked teasingly.

Veronica felt electricity buzzing up her arm from where Logan's hands held her wrist and she slid her foot under the table until it came into contact with ankle. "The kind of thing that doesn't end with me sleeping in a hostel bunk tonight."

Logan grinned. "Veronica Mars, are you playing footsie with me?"

She blushed even deeper. She didn't know why this was so hard for her to say. She'd been fine in Big Sur, suggesting that they spend the night together, but for some reason now she felt like she needed to tell him about her not-really-boyfriend and she was convinced she was bungling the whole thing.

They sat there for a moment, hands touching above the table and feet touching below, until their waiter was suddenly back with the next course, a salad with goat cheese and walnuts. They let go of each other's extremities as the charcuterie plate was cleared and the salad placed in front of them.

Veronica brought a forkful to her mouth but she was still waiting for Logan to respond to her line about not sleeping in her hostel. She didn't like waiting for a response. She wanted to know right now if she had made a massive fool of herself.

Logan seemed to sense this, but rather than indulging her he seemed to have chosen a method of torture instead. As they ate their salad he steered their conversation back to a neutral topic. Part of her was relieved, but the other part of her was confused.  _She_  was usually the one steering the topic away from the serious.

The next course was coq au vin, and Veronica thought she had died and gone to heaven when she tasted the red wine sauce. She began to quiz Logan about all the places he had eaten on his trip so far, asking him to name the best restaurants in each city. Soon their plates were being cleared and they were drinking the last of their wine.

Veronica was feeling a nice buzz from the wine, and this helped her relax a bit. They still hadn't returned to their earlier topic of conversation about what could potentially happen next. She was staring down at her empty glass when she felt Logan kick her underneath the table to get her attention.

"Do you want dessert, Veronica?" he asked.

"I… I think I'm pretty full," she said, unsure if she had just ruined his plans for the final course. But she wasn't hungry anymore. She wanted to get out of here, out into the night air to clear her head.

Logan tossed his Amex card to the waiter. "Me too. Let's get out of here."

Veronica zipped up her jacket and headed towards the door as Logan finished paying and she went outside by herself. She took a deep breath, feeling the crisp spring weather, and forced herself to be ok with the fact that she was pretty sure she had made a fool out of herself in the bistro. Logan was acting weird. The old Logan, at the mention of possible sex, would have whisked her out of the restaurant before the salad had even hit the table and made her wish happen. This Logan, however, seemed to have acquired at least some patience. That is, if she wasn't being outright rejected.

She heard the door behind her and turned to see Logan coming out of the restaurant. He pointed to the left and they turned to walk down the street, towards what she wasn't sure. They hadn't discussed where they would go next. No, she'd been too busy quizzing him about Spanish tapas. She wanted to kick herself.

They walked half a block in silence and then suddenly Logan was pulling on her left arm, leading her into a narrow, deserted alleyway.

"Logan, where are we—"

He interrupted her by kissing her, backing her up until she was leaning against the wall of a building. He braced his hands on either side of her and leaned in to deepen the kiss. She found her lips opening up to his and their tongues tangled as her hands seemed to wind up around his neck as if they had a mind of their own.

She clung to him in the alley and they kissed. It felt amazing, to be holding onto him like this, to feel his lips traveling over hers and then down to her neck. She moaned as he kissed her there and his hands came down to caress her back and squeeze her ass.

"Veronica," he whispered in her ear as he pulled her closer.

"Logan?" she replied in a breathy voice, the heat between her thighs almost too much to bear. How had that happened so quickly?

"Do you want to talk about our situation now?" he asked and she pulled her head back to find him barely containing a laugh.

"Are you laughing at me?" she teased, pretending to bring a knee up to nail him in the crotch.

He caught her thigh in his hand and caressed it as he kissed her again. "I would never laugh  _at_ you. I'm laughing  _with_  you," he said after a while.

She pouted and he rested his forehead on hers. "Veronica, thank you for being straight with me. I know that wasn't easy for you."

She felt the strangest urge to cry at his words. Not out of sadness, but because of how he could read her. He could always read her. He knew what came easily to her and what didn't.

"Veronica listen to me," he said, lifting her chin so she met his eyes. "I want you. I will always want you. I can't believe I still have to prove that to you."

She kissed him then, to kiss away her doubts and fears and just let herself open up to him like she had wanted to do all day. She clung to him like he was a life raft and she was sinking in the ocean. Her hands ran up and down his back and she felt one of his hands come up to unzip her jacket and cup her breast. She slid one of her hands in between them and down toward his belt buckle, finding the hardness she had felt before against her stomach and running her fingers over it.

He groaned as she touched him and she felt his hand slide up under her shirt to pull her bra cup aside and squeeze her tightened nipple with his fingers. Their tongues plunged in and out of each other's mouths and she felt a hunger for him that was all consuming. When he left her mouth to kiss her neck again she took a glance around the alley. They were tucked into a tiny alcove against a building so that they were hidden from any passersby, and she had an idea.

She reached both of her hands to Logan's belt buckle and started to fumble with it. He pulled his mouth from her neck and looked at her.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his voice nearly cracking as she reached her hands inside his pants and began to move them up and down on his stiff cock. She loved Logan's dick. It was the perfect size and shape for her. She freed him from his boxer briefs and kissed him hard on the mouth before she began to sink to her knees.

As soon as Logan realized what she was doing he said, "Veronica, you don't have too—"

"Shhh!" she said, reaching up to press her finger against his lips. "I do what I want. You know that."

She got comfortable on her knees and rubbed her thumb over the moisture at the tip of his cock, then took the head into her mouth and swirled her tongue around it. His head fell back and he she heard him gasp as she began to suck his cock. She had always loved giving Logan head. It was like the ultimate aphrodisiac for her. As she slid his cock back in her mouth and then pulled back, dragging her lips along his shaft, she had one hand on his cock and the other reaching down towards her crotch to rub herself through her pants. She got a rhythm going and felt the wetness between her legs intensify until she was moaning too. The vibrations of her moans intensified the feel of her mouth on Logan and he cried out.

She felt him begin to swell and she was prepared to swallow every drop of his semen when suddenly she felt herself being lifted up and spun around. Logan placed her hands against the wall in front of her reached around to unzip her jeans and tug them down as he pushed her jacket up. He tugged the soaked crotch of her panties aside and plunged two fingers inside her as he rubbed his thumb over her clit.

"Fuck, you are so wet," he said gruffly against her ear and she braced herself against the wall and pushed back towards him as he slid his dick to her slick entrance and thrust himself inside her with one big push.

They both cried out with pleasure at the feel of finally being connected again in the most essential way possible. Logan pulled back and thrust into her again and again, keeping his fingers on her clit.

She felt his mouth against her ear again. "Do you like getting fucked in public, Veronica?"

"You know I fucking do," she panted, her body tensing as his hand found her breast.

"I wanted to fuck you all day," he breathed, his cock filling her and spreading her wide before withdrawing again and then slamming back.

"I wanted to fuck you all day too," she said, the contrast between their hot, wet skin and the cold stone of the wall heightening her senses.

She felt him pick up the pace and squeeze her clit harder. She flexed the muscles in her legs and ass as she felt her orgasm building and suddenly she was arching back and crying out as he thrust into her one last time and held her impaled on his cock from behind. He came in strong waves that she could feel, each burst of his cock releasing more semen into her womb, and those spasms made her own orgasm more intense. They shuddered together for a moment and then she herself being pulled away from the wall and back into his arms.

The chill spring air blew over their exposed skin and they began to pull their clothes back in place before they got too cold. Veronica felt Logan's semen gushing out of her, soaking her panties even more than they already were from her arousal. She would worry about that later. She felt him turning her slowly until they were facing each other again and he stared into her eyes.

He pulled her towards him with one hand and ran his other hand down the side of her face and then through her hair.

"Veronica Mars," he said, their eyes locked in post-coital understanding. "Don't worry about missing your train in the morning. We aren't going to sleep tonight."


	6. Chapter 6

~~~Present Day, ten years after 3x20~~~

Standing in the elevator as it descended from the sixth floor of Veronica's apartment building, it was all Logan could do to keep from punching the wall with his fist. He knew from past experience, however, that this would only lead to a busted hand with no problems solved.

It would have been fitting, he thought, for their epic love story, if he were to leave her place bleeding. Bloodshed was all part of it. He'd meant it metaphorically when he'd said it to her all those years ago, but he knew better now. And he should have known better then too.

He made it to his car without breaking anything and punched the buttons on his car stereo until Black Sabbath came on. This was his favorite angry music. When he was pissed, he cranked the Sabbath and let himself yell along with the songs until he felt marginally better.

He'd known this moment was coming, when he would have to deal with the fact that Veronica was in the same place as him now. He'd been both desperate for it to happen and dreading it with every fiber of his being. He didn't know why he was so scared of dealing with her all of a sudden. Granted he had only been in town for a month, and Veronica for two weeks, but he normally would have found her the minute she arrived.

Or she would have found him. What the fuck what that? Since when did Veronica Mars not keep track of every detail of his life? It didn't matter whether they were together or apart, she kept tabs on the people she cared about, and no matter what she said to him, he knew she cared about her. Or he thought she did.

The more he thought about it, the more it baffled him. She had been purposely playing dumb when it came to him. She'd blocked out his information. She truly had no idea he was in San Diego. And the family she'd imagined he'd had! He wasn't surprised that Veronica had run away when she'd seen him with Teresa, but he couldn't believe that she hadn't looked into the details and done a full background check on Teresa, thereby figuring out the truth. She'd just seen them, made an assumption, and shut him out of her mind.

He'd been kidding about wanting to throttle her, but he definitely felt the urge to punish her in some way for this latest antic. Was she so convinced that she was destined to be alone and miserable? She clearly wasn't seeing anyone else, that much he knew. He laughed as he realized he had been keeping better track of her than she had of him over the past two years.

He'd thrown her for a loop when he'd broken off the kiss and left her apartment, he knew that much. He'd finally stood up for himself, stood up to her. He thought about the night in Big Sur, and the night in Geneva. He had wanted her desperately both times, of course, but he had allowed her to come around to the idea herself. That tactic worked well with Veronica, he'd discovered over the years. You couldn't tell her what to do. But if you wanted her to do something, you made sure she thought she came up with the idea on her own.

When he'd seen her on the beach in Hawaii two years ago, his desire had been very conflicted. On the one hand, he'd wanted her as much as he always wanted her. On the other hand, he didn't know if he could do this again. He'd gone into their previous two encounters knowing that they weren't going to lead to a relationship. But no matter how much he told himself that, he couldn't be with her without diving in completely and loving her with every part of himself. He paid for this ecstasy with the misery that inevitably followed as he tried to fill the Veronica-shaped hole in his heart with everything but her, because he couldn't have her.

The minute he had kissed her earlier tonight he'd felt that old tidal wave of neediness coming. He knew if he gave in and made love to her they would be right back where they'd been in Geneva. A wild night of passion in which he fell more deeply in love with her than he thought possible and then it was over as they both ran off to their next adventure. But this time there was no running. If they slept together right away and things went south—which they inevitably would—they were stuck in the same city. Running into each other, dating other people. He couldn't watch Veronica be with other men. He'd done it before and he doubted he could survive it again.

What was the solution? He didn't want her to be with anyone else. But what would happen if he tried to get her to be with him? Could he get her to come around to the idea herself? The last time they had been together, actually trying to make a relationship work, things had gone awry because he was overprotective of her and she refused to stop investigating cases that put her life in danger. Was she still doing that sort of thing? On the surface, she had a normal job and a career, albeit still crime-related, but was she still searching out mob bosses on the weekends for fun and getting hits put out on her? Did he want to get tangled up in the Veronica vortex again?

He scoffed as he put his car into gear and headed back to his house. What a stupid question. He knew it didn't matter what his rational brain wanted, he would get dragged into whatever mess Veronica decided to create for herself here. He couldn't stay away from her even if he tried. His subconscious wouldn't let him. It had led him towards Zito's tonight, in fact. He'd been painting a room in his new house—he'd bought a fixer-upper when he got the UCSD job and found that he liked doing home improvement projects to clear his mind—when he decided to go get some food. He'd looked up Italian places and found Zito's. He didn't actually expect to run into Veronica there, but he had thought of her.

When he'd first heard from Weevil that she was moving back to San Diego he'd nearly dialed her number right then and there. But then he'd stopped. The way they'd left things in Hawaii had changed things between them in a way all their previous encounters couldn't. He'd done a good job of playing along with her desires for one-night encounters, forcing himself to be as emotionally detached as she was. But he couldn't do that anymore. After Geneva, a switch had flipped inside his head. His skin tingled as he remembered their sexy encounter in an alleyway that had led to a night of devouring each other in his hotel room before she had to go to the train station. He'd told her she wouldn't sleep that night, but by 3am they were so exhausted from all the sex that they hadn't been able to keep their eyes open any longer. He had dozed off and the next thing he knew he was waking up to Veronica kissing his cheek lightly and placing a note on the pillow next to him as she rushed out the door.

The note had been short:

_Logan, Thank you for everything. I have to go now. V._

He'd smiled at first as he read the note, stretching out in bed to soothe his sore muscles, but the smile had faded. Typical Veronica. No indication of where exactly she was going. Well, he knew she was going back to Leipzig, but after that? She had mentioned more schooling. Good luck tearing her away from that. And if she was going back to Philadelphia, would she be going back to the unfortunate non-boyfriend she had mentioned?

Logan didn't give a shit about that guy, that was for sure. Based on Veronica's reactions to him physically that night in Geneva he knew she hadn't been sexually satisfied, truly, in a long time. He knew it was egotistical of him to think so, but the physical connection between them was unparalleled. He hadn't found that connection with any other woman he'd ever been with, and he doubted he ever would.

He'd been lost in Geneva, without a clue what to do. Part of him wanted to follow her back to Leipzig, then back to Philadelphia, follow her to the ends of the earth if he could. The way they could talk to each other now, he loved it. He loved talking about his work and hearing about hers, he loved eating with her and debating politics and popular culture with her, and of course he loved making love with her. He had let his mind get carried away and envisioned them sharing that dynamic for the rest of their lives, growing old together. He gave himself that gift in Geneva, of letting himself dream like that, before he'd gotten back to the reality of the situation. She had no time or space for him in her life right now.

But could he make a life for himself with space for her in it eventually if she chose to join him? He was all over the place now, traveling through Europe for at least another month and then he had no idea what he would do. He had assumed he would write his book in New York but the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to get back to the things that made him happy in life. Being with Veronica reminded him of that side of himself, the side that loved the ocean, the side that gave himself up to what he knew in his gut made him who he really was.

He'd come up with the idea of writing his book in Hawaii when he talked to his old friend Dick Casablancas on the phone a few days after Veronica left Geneva. Dick asked him when he'd last been surfing, and Logan realized that it had been a really long time since he'd been in the water. He didn't go back to California very often, since he still had so many negative memories associated with it, and he had a life in New York that kept him occupied. But whenever he did get back out there, he tried to catch some waves if he could. How amazing would it be if he could go surfing every day again? The communion between mind, body, board and water was holy to him, and he missed it. There wasn't really anything keeping him in New York, and he could write anywhere as long as he had his computer.

He called his editor the next day and told him he was moving to Hawaii to write. His editor, accustomed to the whims of writers, was supportive of the idea, and Logan booked a flight at the end of his European trip straight to Hawaii so he could start looking for a place. He found a simple bungalow to rent on Kauai and he settled into a quiet routine of surfing and writing. He finished his book a year later, but he decided to stay in Hawaii instead of moving back to New York. He felt healthy there, like he was stimulating his body with surfing as much as his mind was stimulated by writing.

And here he was now, a few years later, with a house and a job in San Diego. He had turned thirty back in February and he was ready for this next chapter in his life. And Veronica Mars had inserted herself into that chapter whether he was ready for her or not.

So, what to do now? He kept the Sabbath going once he got home and decided to work out his frustrations on his house. There was always more work to be done, he was discovering, when one had a fixer-upper. Sure, he could afford to pay someone else to do the work, and for the jobs he couldn't handle he was totally fine with doing that. But he liked using his own hands, too, doing smaller things like painting, sanding, whatever. It was therapeutic, it gave him something to focus his energy on, and at times like this, when he still had the taste of Veronica in his mouth, that was a blessing.

Veronica woke up the next morning with puffy eyes, her body still aching from the emotions of the night before. She pulled her duvet up over her face and groaned, wishing she could stay in bed all day. But she had to be in the lab to catch up on work she hadn't been able to get to during the week. This was probably a good thing, though. Working in the lab would distract her from whatever the hell she had gotten herself into with Logan.

She felt like an idiot, for the most part. He'd been in the same city as her and she'd had no idea. Veronica Mars  _did not_  get caught off-guard like this. Except it was entirely her own fault. She had chosen to stop keeping track of him, had chosen to assume that he would keep living his life without her in a place conveniently far removed from her domicile. In hindsight she felt very foolish for assuming that he and Teresa had been together and that they'd had a family. She could have checked up on that so easily, so why hadn't she?

It had been easier for her, at the time, to just compartmentalize all that was Logan and put it away where it wouldn't distract her. After Big Sur and Geneva she had gone through weeks of agony, questioning the life choices she had made that steered her life away from him. She had come to realize since then that looking back on things always felt that way. Questioning life choices was normal. There was always the road—or roads—not taken, and no matter how much she was committed to the path she was on, a voice inside her head always lurked there asking what her life would have been like if she had chosen otherwise.

She played this game with herself again as she let the water run over her body in the shower, letting herself ponder the road not taken. Wouldn't Robert Frost be proud. She had made the right choices, she believed. The timing had never been right for her and Logan. After college they had both been moving to different places and she knew she couldn't deal with the distraction of a long distance relationship while she was starting graduate school. After Geneva she had been heading back to Philadelphia to finish school and Logan had been on an open-ended tour of Hemingway's Europe, and the timing had been wrong for anything more to happen. The timing was always wrong with him. She laughed sardonically as she switched off the water. Wasn't that the true story of Logan's role in her life: right guy, wrong time, over and over again.

Veronica put her trusty compartmentalization skills to work and managed to push these thoughts out of her head before she got to the lab to work. Time flew by as she worked and before she knew it, it was five o'clock and she had to head to Neptune for dinner with her father and Alicia.

She was grateful for this distraction as well. She wanted to see her father and Alicia and be around people who loved her in spite of all her shortcomings. Logan's behavior toward her last night, his brush-off, the shuttered look in his eyes, had sent her down a guilt spiral, reminding her of how her fears and hang-ups had hurt him in the past.

Keith and Alicia were sitting on the porch when she drove up, swinging on their porch swing. They were so cute, the two of them. She made her way up to the porch and they pulled her into a group hug, Keith kissing her hair and Alicia saying how happy she was to see her. She felt the weight on her shoulder lift slightly and just allowed herself to be loved.

After dinner and a full review of her first week of work at UCSD, Veronica and Alicia ended up out on the porch swing while Keith did the dishes. Veronica stared at the street and she felt Alicia's eyes on her.

"You look like you've got a lot on your mind right now," Alicia said, reaching over to rub Veronica's shoulder.

Veronica shrugged. "It's been a big week. New job, new place, all of that…"

"It seems like there's something more," Alicia said.

Veronica leaned into Alicia's hand and sighed. "Logan is in San Diego," she said, knowing that it was useless to try and hide this latest development.

Alicia nodded and said, "Ah, so you know now."

Veronica sat up straight and looked at Alicia in disbelief. "Wait, you  _knew_  he was here?"

Alicia looked towards the front door. "We knew. He came to see us a few weeks ago. He keeps in touch with your father, you know."

Veronica felt her anger building. "He came to  _see_  you guys? He keeps in touch with Dad?"

Alicia looked concerned. "Maybe we should bring your dad into this conversation."

Veronica was already on her feet, marching towards the door. "Damn straight we should.  _DAD_!" she shouted. "You have some explaining to do!"

Keith was in the kitchen drying his hands, and Veronica saw Alicia catch his attention and give him a nod.

"Ah, I'm guessing this has to do with Logan?" Keith said.

"How could you be in touch with him and not tell me!  _HOW_?" Veronica shouted.

"Veronica, why don't we sit down in the living room and talk about this," Keith said.

Veronica ignored him and just stood there. "I can't believe this!"

Keith put his hand on her back and guided her toward the living room. "He asked me not to say anything to you, Veronica. It hasn't been much, we've just exchanged some emails over the years. He is a writer now, you know, and I read his work. Every once in awhile we talk about it."

Veronica sat down on the couch and fumed. "Yeah, but that doesn't explain why you knew he was moving to San Diego  _at the same time as me_  and didn't say anything to me about it!"

Alicia sat next to her and said, "Veronica, we didn't know he was moving here until he showed up about a month ago to say hello. We figured then that it was best if he told you in his own time that he was here. We didn't want to distract you while you were moving."

Veronica put her head in her hands. "So everybody knew about this but me? Is this some kind of elaborate joke?  _'Let's put Veronica in close proximity with Logan and not tell her about it and then all laugh when she figures it out'_?"

Keith sighed. "You know that's not what happened, Veronica. Do you see us laughing?"

Alicia put her arm around Veronica's shoulder. "I know this is hard for you, sweetie. I'm sorry we didn't tell you sooner. But you've got so much going on right now, we really did think it would be a distraction."

"You're damn right it's a distraction!" Veronica said. "I ran into him last night and it was a disaster. He hates me now."

"He doesn't hate you, Veronica," Keith said.

"Oh, and you know this how? Do you guys talk about his feelings for me when you talk about his writing, too?"

"Veronica, listen to me. He likes to know how you're doing, and I fill him in on things," Keith told her.

Veronica thought her head was going to explode. "Great. So did he tell you about the last time we saw each other?"

Keith and Alicia exchanged a look, and Veronica knew that pause meant this was going to be good.

"He didn't say much, just that you preferred not to be in contact for a while. Can you see why we wouldn't tell you about him being here, knowing that?" Keith asked.

Veronica shrugged and let her shoulders slump. "I don't know, Dad. I'm just… I need to process all of this information."

Keith went over to a side table, opened a drawer, picked up a piece of paper, then came back over to Veronica and handed it to her. "This is his new address. I can give you his number too if you'd like."

"You keep Logan's address written on a piece of paper in your living room? Are you guys exchanging Christmas cards too?" she said sarcastically, but she took the piece of paper and looked at it.

"I wrote it down because I thought you might want it eventually," Keith said, and Veronica felt her heart squeeze with love for her dad in spite of her frustration with him.

"This will all work out fine, Veronica," Alicia said. "You and Logan are adults now. You can figure out how to live in the same place."

Veronica closed her eyes as she folded the piece of paper in half.  _That's what I'm afraid of_ , she thought.

Alicia pulled her into a hug and she felt herself letting go for a second and just being held. When Veronica got up from the couch she walked over to Keith and hugged him too.

"I'm still mad at you about this," she said as she hugged her dad, not really meaning it.

Keith pulled her in tight. "Veronica, have I told you lately how proud I am of you? I am so insanely proud of my beautiful, brilliant daughter. Professor Veronica Mars, doctor of forensic anthropology! You've worked so hard to get here. And now that you're here, you can start the rest of your life. You can slow down a bit. Spend time with family. Spend time with friends. You don't have to fight this."

"I know," she sighed. "I just need to adjust to this new… development."

"Now, I think this calls for a night cap in the form of some chocolate cake Alicia has stashed in the fridge."

Veronica let a weak smile cross her face as she nodded. "Ok, fine. I'll let you buy me off with dessert," she said, and Keith led her back to the dining room table.

Forty-five minutes later Veronica found herself driving back towards San Diego with a few Tupperware containers of leftovers and a promise that Keith and Alicia would visit her new apartment soon. She felt the piece of paper with Logan's address on it burning a hole in her pocket and after listening to Sia's "Breathe Me" for the third time—it was her favorite song to listen to when she was feeling these kinds of crazy, where-the-hell-is-my-life-going emotions—she let herself take it out and punch the address into her GPS.

She felt herself becoming resigned to the situation. He was here, she was here. She wanted to drive by and see where he lived now. She wouldn't knock. No, she didn't know yet what to say to him. Hell, after last night she didn't know if he would even want to see her.  _See you around,_ he'd said. That wasn't exactly an invitation. Well, she would see him without him seeing her, she decided. Her surveillance skills might be a little rusty, but she still knew how to scope a place out without being detected.

Veronica followed her GPS's directions until she found herself parked in front of a house. It wasn't anything ostentatious like the house he'd grown up in, but it was a nice two-story craftsman. She saw his car—this time it was a Range Rover—parked in the driveway, and the lights on inside the house indicated that he was home. She took a deep breath and calmed her heart. She wasn't going in. She wasn't ready. Was she?

She saw a figure move past the front picture window, silhouetted by the light, and she knew it was Logan. She would know that body anywhere. He seemed to be carrying something—was that a paint roller? Since when was Logan into home improvement? She tried to imagine what was going on inside the house. He was painting, apparently. She didn't know him anymore, she realized. She didn't know anything about his life. She'd chosen to stop paying attention, and here she was, caught off guard.

Veronica was watching Logan through the window of his house, pondering whether or not she should go knock on the door, when she heard the rap of knuckles on her car window. She whipped around to see who it was and froze when she saw the barrel of a gun pointed at her through the glass.

Her heart raced, adrenaline coursing through her veins. She rolled down the window when she realized the gunman wasn't going to shoot her immediately, and she was able to make out the face of the person pointing the gun at her. Her blood chilled with recognition.

"Hello, Veronica," Gory Sorokin said. "I'm going to need you to come with me now."


	7. Chapter 7

_~~~Present day, ten years after 3x20~~~_

Veronica stared at Gory Sorokin's smirking face and knew that she had no choice but to get out of the car and go with him. He had a gun, and it wasn't like she had been in this kind of situation recently. Her instincts were still there, of course, but her defense mechanisms were rusty.

If she'd kept a list of people she never thought she would see again, Gory would definitely be on it. After Logan had beat Gory up in the Hearst cafeteria ten years ago, she'd expected the worst. She remembered what he'd said to Logan that day:  _"Whoever you are, you gonna die."_  Logan's response had been typical:  _"Yeah, someday,_ " and then he'd walked out of the cafeteria and out of her life for years.

She had been relieved that he had gone. Having recently discovered on Jake Kane's hard drive that Gory's family was part of a Russian crime syndicate, she knew that Gory's threat wasn't empty. If Logan had stayed in Neptune and taunted Gory's temper—and therefore the temper of his family—who knows what could have happened. But he was gone, and therefore safe.

 _Is that what this is about?_  Veronica thought as she slowly got out of her car.  _Is this some crazy revenge plot that Gory has been cooking up for a decade?_  On the surface it seemed ridiculous that anyone would hold onto a grudge that long, but Veronica's investigations into the Sorokin family after the cafeteria fight had revealed that they definitely subscribed to the school of serving revenge as a cold dish.

Once she was out of her car, Gory gestured with his gun towards a black SUV with tinted windows that was parked a few spots down the street from her own vehicle. He continued to smirk and Veronica's stomach roiled with nausea. As they approached the SUV one of the back doors opened and Gory gestured again with his gun for her to get inside. Well, at least they hadn't dosed her with chloroform and tossed her in a trunk… yet.

Veronica got into the SUV. She didn't have any choice, really. She knew Gory's gun wasn't a toy. There was no one else in the vehicle besides a beefy driver up front. Gory climbed in after her and kept his gun pointed at her casually.

"Ok Veronica, I'm keeping this gun trained on you because I don't trust you. But believe me when I say this will all work out best for you if you cooperate," Gory said as the doors locked.

"What is  _this_ , Gory?" she asked, seething with hatred for him and all he represented. The leaked sex tape, the Castle and its connections to Jake Kane, the organized crime his family dominated that ran the Port of San Diego.

Gory chuckled. "What, you haven't been keeping tabs on me all these years, Veronica? I know what a savvy little spy you are. Oh wait, that's right, we've been keeping tabs on  _you_  this whole time, so we know exactly how little practice you've had beating up the bad guys over the last, oh I don't now, ten years?"

"Who is 'we'?" Veronica asked.

Gory shook his head. "I know you don't really expect me to answer that question. I'm sure you think you know the answer to it, though, because you're such a smart doctor now. A smart doctor with connections to a forensics lab. And how convenient that your lab is right here in San Diego."

Comprehension began to dawn on Veronica. Gory said they'd been keeping track of her, so they obviously knew where she now worked. She was out of the spy business, sure, but as a forensic anthropologist she was still in the crime-solving business.

"You want to use me for my connections to the lab," Veronica said.

Gory shrugged. "You're a smart girl, I knew you'd figure it out. You could have had a fine career as a porn star, of course, but you had to go off and get more schooling instead. It's a shame, you would have made such a marketable naughty school girl."

Veronica ground her teeth. "What are you doing outside Logan's house?"

Gory waved the gun at her casually. "One thing at a time, Veronica, geez. You certainly haven't learned any patience over the years. It seems that some remains have been discovered on the outskirts of town and the authorities think they have something to do with my family. Which is outrageous, I know, but what can you do. Bias is a strong thing, and the law enforcement around here is definitely biased against us.

"That's where you come in, Veronica. You're going to be called in to consult on the case. In fact, I'm willing to bet the lab is trying to call you right now. Too bad your phone is back in your car, but don't worry, you can call them back in a little while. Anyway, I can see by the look on your face that you know where this is heading."

"You want me to lie and say that these remains have nothing to do with you and your sleazy family? Why would you dispose of remains so close to the city anyway? Has your uncle Lev lost his touch with the band saw?" Veronica spat out.

"Oh Veronica, you're so funny," Gory said sarcastically. "You're so suspicious. All I need you to do is help convince the FBI bozos that will inevitably show up that this M.O. isn't the Sorokin family style. It shouldn't be too hard, there are plenty of other people who could have done it. If you need some suggestions let me know."

Veronica closed her eyes and forced herself to remain calm. "You want me to lie about results. What makes you think I would do that?"

Gory smiled. "Look behind you Veronica, through the window. What do you see?"

She turned her head warily and saw, through the tinted windows, an unobstructed view of Logan's house. The lights were still on, and she could see him in the front room, working with the paint roller. She pressed her lips together as her stomach began to drop even further than it had already.

"That's right, there he is, and what a pretty sitting duck he makes," Gory said.

Veronica turned back to Gory. "What exactly are you implying?"

Gory laughed. "Oh come on, Veronica. We've been watching you for years. It's not hard to figure out who you care about. At first I suggested we threaten your father in order to get you to cooperate, but he's too hard to control, what with his spy work and all. But Logan Echolls, now that's an easy target."

"Logan isn't anything to me anymore," Veronica said, but the wobble in her voice contradicted that and Gory picked up on it.

"That's what I like about you," Gory said. "You think you're so good at being all tough and not letting anyone in. But you're actually pretty easy to read when it comes to things like this. You even led me here yourself."

"What?" she asked.

"I was coming to find you tonight once I heard the call would be coming in about the remains. You of all people know how easy it is to trace a cell phone. I thought you'd be doing some boring, single lady stuff at your apartment but imagine my delight when I saw you were heading right to Logan Echoll's house. It's like you did the work for me, deciding who to use to really get you to cooperate."

Veronica's anger boiled. "You won't get away with this."

"Oh, I'll get away with it. That jackass in there? I would have punished him long ago for what he did to me at Hearst if I hadn't been persuaded that keeping him alive was in our best interest. And it really is, as it turns out. Hell, blackmailing you by threatening him is one thing, but just think of how fun it would be to blackmail him too. He even has money, which is more than I can say for you."

Veronica glared at Gory but she didn't know what to say, how to proceed.

"Ah, what time is it, Evgeni?" Gory said to the beefy driver.

"Is eight thirty, sir," the driver replied.

Gory smirked at Veronica again and shrugged. "It's getting kind of late. I should probably return you to your vehicle so you can answer those phone calls you'll be getting. Do we have an understanding here, Veronica?" he said, gesturing with the gun towards Logan's house. "You make sure the investigation heads in the, uh, right direction, and your star-crossed lover will stay safe."

"And then what? You just force my hand on the next case you guys are involved in too?"

Gory reached over to open the door, shaking his head. "We'll save that conversation for another time. Now you're going to go back to your car, and you're going to take that call from the lab, and you're gonna get your little blonde schoolgirl head on the case just like we talked about. If I hear one word about us being implicated, your boy in there is going to feel it. I still owe him a good beating for ten years ago, so honestly I hope you slip up and give me the chance. But good luck!"

Veronica pushed her way out of the car and Gory waved with the gun before shutting the door. The SUV immediately pulled away and Veronica was left standing there in the street. She shivered, and then began to tremble, walking back to her car on shaky legs. Her mind was racing. Her adrenaline was buzzing. She had no idea what she was going to do.

~~~xoxoxo~~~

Logan set his paint roller back in the tray and surveyed his work. The living room paint job was basically finished, he just needed to let it dry before he removed the tape at the edges and put the furniture back into place. He'd spent the day distracting himself from the events of the night before. An early morning surf session got that started and then he had run around town doing errands, picking up more supplies at Home Depot, and finishing the paint job.  _Not too bad for an amateur_ , he thought as he surveyed the room, and he decided to reward himself with a beer.

When he turned to go into the kitchen, however, something outside the front picture window caught his eye. First it was a flash of blonde hair, and he thought he was seeing things, a vision of the temptress taunting him from the street. But then the figure began to move towards a car and he knew he wasn't imagining anything.

He was outside in two seconds, calling her name. "Veronica!"

She was getting into a car. She was here, parked in front of his house, getting back into her vehicle for some reason. Had she been standing in the street? Where had she come from?

She stopped as she heard her name and looked up and him. Her eyes widened and he saw her take a deep breath. There was something about the expression on her face that he couldn't quite figure out. She looked…afraid. He made his way quickly down the sidewalk and stopped when he was standing on the opposite side of the car from her.

"Veronica, what are you doing here?" he asked.

She shook her head slowly. "Logan, I didn't mean to just show up, I'm sorry, I'm leaving now."

"No, you don't have to leave. I was just finishing up some stuff. Do you want to see the new place? I'm guessing you got the address from your dad."

Veronica looked around nervously, then bent down inside the door of her car. He thought she was going to leave without an explanation, and he braced himself to that, already frustrated, when she came back out of the car with a notepad and a pen. She started scribbling and his curiosity was piqued. This was getting weird.

She pushed the notepad across the roof of her car towards him and he took it, reading her message:

_Can't talk here. Don't know what's bugged and what's not. Meet me at Dog Beach in an hour by the lifeguard station. Leave your cell phone in the car. Will explain everything._

Logan's eyes widened as he read and his pulse began to hum with nerves. Veronica was talking about bugs? This wasn't good. From what he understood from Keith, Veronica hadn't been involved in much outside of her lab lately and her life had been relatively calm. Keith hadn't minded; he liked to see his daughter safe. Logan had been happy to hear it, too. Veronica being in danger triggered a reflex in him that wouldn't allow him to rest until he'd done something to help her in some way. He had long ago accepted it as part of himself that he couldn't change, but the years apart had meant he hadn't felt it in a long time.

He was feeling it now. He nodded at her to demonstrate that he agreed with her plan and he saw her shoulders relax a tiny bit. He grabbed the notebook to scribble a response:

 _See you soon_.

She nodded, took her notebook and pen, and paused as if she wanted to say something. She opened her mouth to talk and then stopped. She smiled a tight, exhausted smile and slid back down inside her car.

Logan watched her drive away, standing in the street and staring after her car with a leaden feeling in his heart. He had been prepared to deal with Veronica being in San Diego now that they were both leading relatively normal lives. But he should have known better. "Normal" didn't apply to them, especially not back here, so close to Neptune. There were some things they could never escape.


	8. Chapter 8

~~~Present Day~~~

Veronica stood by the lifeguard station on Dog Beach and stared out at the ocean. The sun had set a while ago but it was Saturday night and there were people partying on the beach. She had chosen Dog Beach for that reason. They could talk privately, but there were still enough people around that if Gory or his henchmen had followed them there would at least be some witnesses around, making it less likely that they would resort to violence.

She had listened to her voicemail on the drive there. Sure enough there was a message on her phone from her FBI contact asking her to meet him at the port first thing in the morning. Human remains had been discovered by a stevedore earlier that day and the local police had called in the FBI, who had requested Veronica's help with the case.

She felt like an idiot, again, for having let her watchful habits slide. She just wanted to have a normal life and this is what she got? Back to square one, it seemed. Her initial reaction after her little chat with Gory had been to get away from Logan's house as soon as possible. He was in danger now, thanks to her. It was implied danger, she knew, but she also knew who was doing the implying, and what they were capable of. After she had exposed Sorokin and his Castle buddies her freshman year at Hearst she had made a deal with Jake Kane and had left that wasps nest alone. But she wasn't surprised to hear they had been keeping tabs on her. She suspected that Clarence Wiedman was involved somehow.

She had been ready to leave and get away when Logan had spotted her outside his house and come after her. In the past, she would have continued to leave. In fact that is exactly what she had done in Hawaii two years ago. But things were different now. She was in trouble, and she had unwittingly brought Logan with her. Could they get through this…together?

She turned her head to scan the beach and saw Logan coming toward her. He was wearing dark jeans and a fisherman's sweater—how very Hemingway of him—to ward of the evening chill. His dark hair stuck out all over the place, untamed by any hair products, and she felt an urge to run her hand through it. His eyes were dark too.

He walked up and stood next to her facing the water. "What the hell is going on, Veronica?"

She let out a long breath. "Thanks for meeting me, Logan. This is going to sound crazy."

He laughed shortly. "Yeah, I figured it was going to be pretty fucking crazy if you had to write me a secret note and lure me back to an old high school haunt."

She ground her teeth and set her jaw. "I wish this was going to be as funny as you're trying to make it. Logan, do you remember Gory Sorokin?"

She saw Logan's eyes change from mocking to confused. "The sex tape guy from Hearst whose ass I kicked in the cafeteria? I remember he looked good covered in pile of French fries."

"That's the one," Veronica said as she nodded. She was nervous about this. Bringing Logan up to speed was going to mean reliving a few details of those last days of freshman year at Hearst that she had packed away for good a long time ago. She and Logan had never discussed what had happened then. When they'd seen each other again three years after the fact it had seemed easiest to just talk about positive things rather than bring up that terrible incident.

She had apologized on the way to Big Sur, sort of, for the way she'd treated him then. She had been furious with him for getting involved in the sex tape scandal and she had told him she wanted him out of her life. Then, after she saw he wasn't going to leave well enough alone, she had told him it was going to take a lot of time for her to forgive him. Three years had been enough time. And so they had never talked about it then, but now they didn't have a choice.

Logan dug his foot into the sand and glared out at the water. "So this guy is back? Why? I know he threatened to kill me but I figured he'd found more important things to do with his organized crime time."

Veronica figured she might as well get to the point. "When I drove to your house tonight I wasn't planning on coming inside. I got the address from my dad—who, by the way, we need to discuss, since you two have apparently been all buddy-buddy for years without telling me. I had dinner with him and Alicia and I found out they knew you were here, and he gave me the address, and before I knew what I was doing I was parked in front of your house. Gory Sorokin was waiting for me there. He had tracked my cell phone and saw where I was heading on my way back from Neptune. He—they have been keeping track of me over the years, I'm guessing with the help of Clarence Wiedman."

"Clarence Wiedman, the head of security for Jake Kane?"

"Yeah, that one. That day, the last time we saw each other before you went to New York, things had gone south with a case. I stole a hard drive from Kane's house while I was investigating this group called the Castle that I suspected was behind the sex tape release. It turns out they had the camera planted in Wallace and Piz's room because they were spying on Wallace as part of the selection process for their secret society."

Logan was clenching and unclenching his hands. "This is all very interesting, but I'd like to know what it has to do with these thugs apprehending you outside my house."

"Fair enough. I struck a deal with Jake Kane and returned the hard drive and they—the Sorokins, the Castle, Kane and Wiedman—left me alone. Or so I thought. Gory wants to use me to deflect suspicion away from his family on a case I got called to consult on tomorrow morning. I think Wiedman is involved because the digging I did on the Sorokin family back then showed that they're organized, but not so organized that they could track me like this. They've work with Wiedman before. I don't know for sure, but I get the feeling he and Jake Kane are involved in this too."

"He told you this outside my house? Did he hurt you? Where was he when I came out?"

"He was gone in his black SUV with his creepy driver slash bodyguard, Evgeni. And no, he didn't hurt me, at least not physically. He sees this as the beginning of a new working relationship, where he and his cronies can use me to steer investigations away from them."

"But you would never do that, Veronica. He has to know that. What makes him think you'll cooperate?"

Veronica looked at Logan. The moon was rising and the light shone on the planes of his face and she felt her heart swelling with emotions, fear being the most identifiable. "He threatened to hurt you if I don't do what he says. Logan, you have to get out of here, you have to get away from San Diego and go somewhere you can be safe. We can use my FBI contacts to help hide you until this goes—"

Anger flared across Logan's expression. "No way," he interrupted. "No way am I running off to hide while you stay here being made the pawn for a bunch of sleezy Russian mobsters. And what makes them think threatening me would force your hand anyway? Didn't their wiretaps pick up the part where you shut me out of your life two years ago?"

Veronica closed her eyes and wished she could run away. "Logan, I… The way I acted in Hawaii, I thought I was doing it for your sake. I thought that your life would be better if I just faded away. And I thought my life would be better too. Look at this mess we're in right now! Disaster seems to find us wherever we go."

"Veronica, can you answer my question? Why are they threatening me to get you to do what they say?"

"Because I care about you!" she yelled, throwing her hands out to her sides. "I have always cared about you, and I always will. I know I do things like make snap judgments and try to run away from you thinking it's for the best. It's what I did ten years ago when you tried to defend my honor. It's what I've done when I've gone back to my life after running into you over the years. I keep thinking that if we just move on and get over each other, that we'll both be able to live happy, fulfilling lives. But it never works. It never fucking works!"

She felt tears welling in her eyes and Logan reached out to pull her into his arms. He cradled her head against his chest as she choked out a sob and she let her arms go around his chest.

"Maybe you should stop running," he said quietly into her hair.

She just sobbed harder. "It's too late. It doesn't matter what I do anymore. If I don't do what they say, they're going to hurt you and I can't let them happen. I will not let them hurt you, Logan."

"Veronica, we can figure this out. Just let me help you figure this out. I refuse to disappear to some safe house. There has to be a way we can untangle this mess."

She laughed then, and it felt incongruous with her tears. She pulled her head away from his chest and looked up at him. "How? This is so much more than just the Sorokins. The Kanes might be involved too. Now that I have authority at the lab, they'll try to figure out a way to control me for my entire career. This is a nightmare."

She felt Logan sigh as his hands threaded into her hair, pulling her back into him. "We'll figure it out. We've gotten ourselves out of messes before. We can do it again. We were quite the team back in the day, don't you remember?"

Veronica shook her head. "This isn't like it was in high school. We're not just dealing with the Neptune Sheriff's department. This is organized crime. This is incredibly dangerous."

"We can do it, Veronica, I'm telling you. Have a little faith in me, ok?"

"I shouldn't have told you," she said into his chest. "It would have been safer for you if I had just left and figured it out by myself. After last night, I could have just said nothing and you would have left me alone. You weren't exactly going to call me up and suggest we go out for coffee."

"Is that what you think?" Logan asked, pulling her back so he could see her face.

"Based on the fact that you kissed me and then left me on my couch staring like an idiot last night?  _'See you around, Veronica'_? Yeah, that's what I think."

Logan shook his head. "No, Veronica. Don't do that again. Don't cast me in the bad guy role just because it's the easy way out. I left you last night because I had no fucking idea what to do with you. I didn't want to go down the same road we've gone down before."

Veronica swallowed. "And what road is that?"

Logan laughed incredulously. "You know, the one where we have mind-blowing sex for a night and then you go back to your perfect life? Does that ring any bells?"

Veronica felt herself blushing. Her face must be a red, blotchy mess. "Logan, the timing was never right. We couldn't give each other anything more than those nights."

Logan looked out at the ocean for a second, as if he was deciding what to say next, and then returned his gaze to Veronica. "I know you talked yourself into that. And I went along with it because I know how hopeless it is to fight you when your mind is made up. But I don't work that way. I can't just turn off my feelings for you. I left last night because I couldn't deal with you walking away from me again. Especially when you would be in the same city and we'd see each other around."

Veronica's eyes filled with sadness. "You thought I would just…use you for sex and then push you away again?"

"Yeah, I did. Do you remember how bad things got when we were together freshman year of college? You could never trust me. You resented my efforts to protect you. Yeah, I did a lot of stupid things, but I was nineteen years old. I was learning how to be the kind of guy you could trust, the kind of guy who was good enough for you, and you just pushed me away and never gave me another chance. You didn't even respond when I poured my heart out to you in your voice mail."

She felt Logan's hands tighten with tension on her upper arms. She was confused. "Voice mail? What are you talking about?"

"I left you a voice mail telling you that I loved you, begging you to forgive me, and you never said a word. I was a mess. I spent weeks in my hotel room, pining after you, and you wouldn't even give me the time of day."

Veronica's mind went back ten years and she tried to remember. She would have remembered a voicemail like that. "I don't remember ever hearing it, Logan. If you opened the message with your typical jackass lines—and yeah, you were a really stupid nineteen-year-old—then I probably deleted it before I even got to that part."

"Of course you did. You were stupid at nineteen too, you know. Sure, you're really book smart, but your stupid stubbornness nearly killed me. If it hadn't been for Dick dragging me out of bed and forcing me to deal with my life, they probably would have found my body trapped underneath a mountain of room service trays with a half-finished game of Mario Cart on the tv. You fucked me up big time."

Veronica closed her eyes at the reminder of that dark time in their lives. It had been so long ago, but he was clearly still hurting from it, somehow. "Ok, we were both idiots when we were nineteen, news at eleven. It's not like we can go back in time and fix that."

"I'm not suggesting that. What's done is done, water under the bridge and all that. But you need to know that if you're going to be back in my life, if we're going to tear each other's clothes off—and don't try to tell me you haven't thought about that—it's all or nothing this time. I won't have a casual relationship with you, Veronica. I'm not capable of that. If we're going to be together, I need all of you."

Veronica's stomach seemed to turn over inside her body. "Logan, I can't promise you anything."

"I'm not asking you to. I'm warning you. If we cross that line again, there's no turning back for me. I won't let you walk away."

"You won't let me?" Veronica asked, amazed that he would try to boss her around like this.

"That's right, Veronica, I won't let you."

"And what makes you so sure we're going to cross that line again?"

Logan's eyes lit up with laughter even as his mouth stayed serious. "Were you in your apartment last night? That was you trying to pull my shirt off, wasn't it?"

Veronica's temper flared. "Yeah, well you were the one who started that kiss."

Logan reached a hand up to her face, tracing his finger over her bottom lip. "I was, wasn't I. It didn't take you too long to join in, though."

Veronica pushed her hands into Logan's chest and freed herself from his grip. "We can't do this right now, Logan. We have to figure out what to do about this Sorokin situation."

Logan looked at her sadly. "I know we do. But we need to figure out what's going on between us, too, Veronica. If for no other reason than that we have to figure out where you're going to sleep tonight."

Veronica wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the ocean. "Well, my apartment is bugged. So is my car. Same goes for my office. I can have my FBI guys sweep them for bugs tomorrow, which I'm sure Gory will anticipate. He doesn't really need the bugs anymore now that he's already requested my services."

"I could take you to your dad and Alicia's," Logan suggested.

Veronica shook her head. "No, I don't want to bring them into this yet. I need to meet my FBI contact in the morning and figure out what's going on with these remains they found. Once I have a better idea of exactly what the Sorokins are trying to get out of I can figure out what to do next."

"We could get a room at the Camelot," Logan said, shoving his hands inside his pockets and hiding a joking smile.

Veronica let herself laugh. Logan was always good at comic relief. "We are close by. I don't know, though, there's probably no vacancy. Saturday nights are popular for cheating on spouses and sex with prostitutes."

"Do you think my place is bugged too?" Logan asked.

Veronica thought it over. "I don't think so. They've been following me, not you. Well, at least they weren't interested in you until I led them right to you. How's your security system?"

"It's top notch, given my upbringing. Look, why don't you stay at my house tonight. I have a guest room. The living room smells like paint but the rest of the place is habitable for the most part. We can even look around for bugs when we get there, just like old times."

"Logan, you don't have to do that, I can just get a room at a hotel."

"There is no way I'm letting you out of my sight tonight. Will you please just say yes?"

Veronica turned to look at Logan and the look on his face of concern and longing both soothed her and worried her. She knew he had an instinctual need to protect her. It had been one of the things that had driven them apart ten years ago. She wasn't built to let people help her, and he wasn't built to stand on the sidelines when she was in trouble. But she was older now. She had learned that she couldn't do everything by herself.

"Ok," she said.

Logan put his arm around her shoulder and they walked back to their vehicles. Whether she liked it or not, they were in this together.

~~~~~xoxoxoxo~~~~

An hour later they were inside Logan's house, standing in the kitchen over his newly sanded and varnished butcher's block island countertop. Veronica ran her fingers over the smooth surface, studying the whorls of the wood's grain.

Logan finished putting a drop of honey into a mug of tea and slid it towards her. "Here you go, Dr. Mars. Some herbal tea to help you sleep."

He watched as she took the mug and wrapped her hands around it, smiling at him weakly. Here in the light of his kitchen he could see just how exhausted she was.

"Do you want to watch a movie or something?" he asked, playing the gracious host.

Veronica sipped from her tea and shrugged. "I don't really feel like doing much of anything."

They had agreed not to discuss the details of the Sorokin situation in case his place was bugged. They had done a preliminary sweep when they got to the house, but she would need to send in a professional to really be sure.

He wished he had caught Sorokin on his street earlier so he could kick the shit out of him again. He hated that bastard for what he had done to Veronica back then and he hated him even more now. He knew the situation was tense and that he was volatile. Not as volatile as he had been at nineteen, but he still knew how to fight.

He still couldn't believe they had actually discussed their past relationship. Sure, they had referred to it in their earlier encounters, but they didn't go into details. Now, thanks to Sorokin and friends, they didn't have a choice. He was partly relieved. He knew they needed to be honest with each other about the past if they were going to move forward, even if they just stayed friends.

The conversation wasn't over yet, but he didn't think tonight was the time to finish it. He'd given her an ultimatum, though. He wasn't going to step aside and play by her rules this time. He meant what he said about it being all or nothing with her. He watched her, her hair soft around her shoulders. She was wearing one of his old Columbia sweatshirts, which he had offered to her when they were going out to the back yard to look for hidden cameras. She looked heartbreakingly beautiful. She always did, to him.

"What time do you have to be at work in the morning?" he asked.

"Pretty early. Eight o'clock. I should leave here by six thirty if I want to get home and changed before I go."

"Well, it's almost midnight now. We should probably get some sleep. Want to see your room?"

Veronica nodded and he gestured for her to follow him. He led her up the stairs and down the hall to a door on the right. They stood in the doorway and looked around. The guest room was nice, with a queen-sized bed covered in a blue duvet. Logan was glad he had finished the paint job in here last week and that it was habitable.

She turned to him. "Can I see your room too?"

"Uh, yeah, of course you can."

He led her out of the guest room and down the hall, opening the door and flipping the light switch. He gave silent thanks that it was passably clean. The king-sized bed was covered in a slate gray duvet with white sheets and a folded patchwork quilt at the end of it.

Veronica walked in and surveyed the painting on the wall behind the bed. It was a painting of the ocean.

"This is beautiful," she said, turning to face him. "Is it Big Sur?"

He nodded. "Sure is. It's by a local artist up there."

She looked back at the painting for a moment and he would have given anything to know what was going through her mind. He had loved Big Sur since childhood and when he had seen the painting in a gallery in LA he knew he had to have it. His memories of his time there with Veronica swam up in his mind and he wondered if she was remembering too.

She turned back to him and he knew by the expression on her face that she was. She walked back to where he was standing near the door. "Logan, thank you for offering your place to me tonight. Thank you for just… being here."

"I'm always here," he said. He couldn't believe that she was here too. That she had actually admitted to needing someone else in her life. In what capacity he was needed, he wasn't sure, but he knew she needed him. Sure, it was under unpleasant, crime-related circumstances, but still. She needed him. It was written all over her face.

"I know," she replied. She rose onto her tiptoes and put her lips to his in a brief kiss. "Thank you," she whispered as she pulled away.

Logan slid his hand around her mug and took it from her, setting it down on top of his dresser. He put his hands on either side of her face and looked into her eyes, searching for a moment, before lowering his mouth to hers.

The kiss was slow and sweet at first. It was the complete opposite of last night's furious kiss on her couch. He took his time now, showing her how much he felt for her with the slow ministrations of his mouth, his hands cradling her head, his fingers in her hair. He felt a deep sensation in the bottom of his belly that went beyond sexual desire. It was a feeling he only ever had with her.

Her hands came up around his neck as she kissed him back, and the moment her fingers touched him he deepened the kiss. Little more than an hour ago he had told her he wouldn't be her casual plaything anymore and yet here they were, kissing in his bedroom, all kinds of serious emotions welling up inside him.

He pulled away from her mouth and kissed her forehead, then the top of her head, his arms going around her back to pull her into his body. "Veronica," he said quietly, "you should probably go back to your room now unless you want this to get really complicated, really quickly."

He felt her arms squeeze around him and then her head was pulling away from him. He thought she was going to slip out of his arms, but then she planted a kiss on his chest and he looked down at her, cautiously hopeful.

She turned her face up to his. "It's already really complicated," she said, and then she was rising up to kiss him again and he met her half way, knowing there was no going back from this point.

The seriousness of their situation heightened everything. He turned around and began walking backwards toward his bed, kissing her the whole way, and as he sank down onto the mattress he pulled her down on top of him. He felt her hair fall down around him and the smell of her surrounded him. He ran his hands up until they were tugging under his sweatshirt that she was wearing. He pulled it up over her head and tossed it aside, returning his hands to roam over her body, feeling her through her thin t-shirt.

She leaned back and sat up as she straddled him and he lifted his torso up so he could pull off his sweater and t-shirt all at once, and she ran her hands over his bare chest and leaned in for another kiss. He pulled at her t-shirt and tugged it up, unclasping her bra with his hand and soon he was pulling her down to him so they laid skin to skin, the feel of her hardened nipples against his chest an incredible turn-on.

He rolled them over together so she was beneath him and he kissed her mouth, her jaw, her neck, and down to her breasts. He suckled one of her nipples and he heard her gasp with pleasure as she ran her hands through his hair. He replaced his mouth with his fingers and pinched that nipple as he put his mouth on the other. He worshipped her breasts, he always had, and he could have kissed them for hours.

He felt her hands go to his belt and he lifted away so she could undo the buckle, turning her attention next to unzipping his fly, her fingers grazing over the hardness she found there. She slid her fingers around his cock and he groaned at her touch, her perfect little hands finally back on him.

She freed his erection from his boxer briefs and ran her thumb over the bead of wetness she found at the tip, and groaned into her mouth as he kissed her before pulling back to undo the zipper of her jeans and slide his hand down inside her underwear to find her pussy warm and waiting for him.

They came apart for a moment so they could pull their pants off completely and then came back to each other's arms, their mouths meeting again, their hands diving down below. He braced his hands on either side of her and pulled back so he could look into her eyes.

"Hi," he said, feeling silly as soon as the words left his mouth.

"Hi," she said back, and she smiled at him with desire in her eyes, and maybe even something more.

"How do you want me?" he asked, and the words brought him back to their lazy days of lovemaking in the summer before they started college, when they would spend hours in his room at the Neptune Grand exploring each other.

"I want you like this," she said, and he felt her hand guiding his cock towards her entrance.

He kept his eyes on hers as he slowly entered here, wanting to see her face as he filled her. Her eyelids fluttered and then shut completely as she let out a moan and he buried himself inside her. He leaned his head down and kissed her then, and began to move. He went slowly at first. He wanted to re-learn every inch of her and savor every moment of this. She lifted her hips to match his thrusts and they moved together, kissing, his hand reaching down to toy with her clit, her hands digging into his back to pull him deeper inside. He felt her orgasm build, recognizing the flush of her skin and the heat of her body, and he thrust into her in the way he knew she loved, putting the pressure of his body against her clit.

"Logan!" she cried out, her fingers digging deeper, her head tilting back, and then she was shattering around him, her inner muscles clenching on him, pulling him.

He kissed her as she came down from her high and then he began to thrust harder, feeling his own orgasm demanding release. She moved with him, rubbing against him, pulling him closer and he knew that she was going to come again, this time with him.

"Veronica," he said on a gasp, "look at me."

Her eyes flew open and he stared into their deep blue depths as he let himself go over the edge, his cock as far inside her as he could possibly be, pushing her over the edge with him, him bursting with his release, her muscles milking him until he couldn't move any more.

He slowly slid off of Veronica and kept his arm across her as he sprawled out onto his stomach, kissing her once more before allowing his head to fall to the bed. They breathed together, and his hand held her possessively. As their heart rates headed back towards normal, he leaned towards her and kissed her ear.

"You're sleeping in here tonight, in case you didn't figure that out," he said, and he heard her chuckle.

She reached down and pulled the quilt from the bottom of the bed up and over them both, tucking it around his shoulders as he turned and pulled her into his arms. He expected her to respond with a witty quip, but she just leaned over and kissed him on the cheek and then laid her head down to rest. Soon they had both fallen into a deep, contented sleep.

 


	9. Chapter 9

~~~Present Day~~~

Veronica was walking in shallow ocean water. The cerulean blue water lapped around her calves and the air was hazy. She was looking for something, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't remember what it was. She was walking, looking, certain it would be just a few steps further until she found it, but there was nothing. Soon the sand began to shift under her feet and she was sinking deeper, the water creeping up around her legs, inching higher as her feet began sinking lower…

And then she woke up. She wasn't at the beach, she had been dreaming. She opened her eyes to the graying morning light and looked around, her vision gradually focusing and her body coming awake. She was ensconced in warm covers and strong male arms. Logan's bed. Logan was here. She felt his hand resting on her thigh, his breath on the skin of her back.

She wriggled slightly until she felt her ass come into contact with his cock and she settled herself in closely. Spooning in the morning was definitely one of life's pleasures. She basked in the feel of their bodies nestled together until her brain cleared a bit more from sleep and she remembered what she had to do this morning. The case. The Sorokins. She felt her stomach fill with dread. Why couldn't she just stay here in bed all day with Logan?

She didn't know where this was going. She had heard every word of his all-or-nothing speech and she believed him. She didn't want to string him along. She knew that wasn't fair to either of them. She was, she realized with some trepidation, finally admitting that she needed him, in a way she never knew she could need another person. It was terrifying. But those were his terms. She was going to have to face her fears.

But first she had to face the Sorokins. She lifted her head up slightly to get a look at the clock on the nightstand. 5:45 AM. If she got up now and got back to her place, she could change her clothes and make it to the port in plenty of time. But the bed felt so comfortable…

She turned her head around to look at Logan and she found him stirring slowly awake, his arm starting to move up her leg and over her stomach until his hand cupped her breast. She felt him nudge her from behind. His cock was getting hard. She turned her head back around and he pulled her closer, his lips finding the back of her neck, kissing her through her hair.

She interlaced the fingers of her bottom hand with his hand that was underneath her and she felt his other hand wandering down toward her pussy. His fingers moved softly through the curls at the apex of her thighs and she inhaled deeply as she felt him stroke his fingers across her clit and down to her opening, pushing slowly into her. She arched her back and pressed against his hand as he moved it gently.

His hardened cock brushed against her back and then he was pulling her body up the bed slightly until they were aligned and he removed his fingers, replacing them with the tip of his cock. She arched again to give him a better angle, and he pushed into her from behind. They stayed on their sides as he thrust into her and she met him with her hips, his fingers working her clit and his breath on her back.

She relished the feel of him inside her. There was nothing else like it. Logan could play her body like a finely tuned instrument. God, she had missed him, she thought as the heat built between them, their love nest under the covers getting steamy. Soon he was lifting her up so her ass was in the air and she rested the front of her body the pillows in front of her. He settled onto his knees behind her, his hands on her hips, and she met him thrust for thrust. She pulled herself up to where she could grip the headboard and his hands reached for her breasts. She reached one hand down to touch herself and before she knew it she was coming, the feel of his cock driving in and out of her from behind pushing her into a state of bliss. He came soon after and she squeezed around him as he filled her.

She was incredibly turned on by the feeling of Logan coming inside her. She always had been. She was a strict condom user with the other men in her life—it was safe and it wasn't as messy. But with Logan, she wanted every part of him, safe and dangerous, messy and clean.

Logan sank back down to the bed and laid on his side, pulling her with him into a loose embrace. "Good morning, gorgeous," he said, and she let a smile move across her face.

Then she remembered what the day ahead held for her and she let out a sigh. "I should get up," she said, her fingers interlacing with his again.

"Can I make you breakfast?" he asked.

"It's after six. If I get back to my place in time, I can get a change of clothes and show up at the site looking at least semi-professional."

"And freshly tumbled, I hope," he said.

"Is that what the kids are calling it these days? Tumbling?"

He gave her a squeeze and then rolled over to work his way up to sitting. "At least let me make you coffee before you go. I have a really nice espresso maker I'd like to show off."

"Logan Echolls, barista. I like it," she said, and she rolled out of bed too.

She was surprised by how natural it was. The last time they had been together, she had been running out the door to catch a train in Geneva and he hadn't been awake. This was much nicer. She really liked his room. His bed was comfortable, his sheets soft, and the painting over his bed was even more gorgeous in the daylight. She walked over to the window and found herself looking out into the back yard. Was it just last night that they had been hunting out there for hidden cameras?

Logan pulled on a pair of sweatpants and headed downstairs and she gathered her clothes and went into the bathroom to get dressed and freshen up a bit. She then headed downstairs, following the scent of coffee into the kitchen where he stood shirtless before the espresso maker, twisting the handle into place and pressing a button. She admired the muscles of his back—he was so gorgeous, she realized, it nearly took her breath away.

She tried to remember when she had first noticed how attractive he was. It was hard to pinpoint. Sure, Lilly had gone on and on about his cuteness for hours and Veronica had nodded along to please her, but she hadn't really gotten it. She thought Duncan was cute. Logan was just his annoying friend. After Lilly died, she could barely stand to be around Logan, let alone feel any attraction to him. And then one day, she had offered to help him with a video project he was putting together for a ceremony honoring Lilly.

A particularly funny clip of Lilly goofing around made him laugh, and she realized it was the first time she had seen him laugh—truly laugh with happiness, not mockery or cruelty—for the first time in over a year. And it was like she saw him for the first time as she felt a jolt of awareness—of attraction, she now realized—pulse through her. All the pain they both felt melted away temporarily and after that moment, they had begun to let each other slowly back in.

The hiss of the espresso maker brought her back to the present and soon he turned around so she could see his face. What a face. The dark brown hair sticking out all over the place, messy from sleep—and her fingers. The deep brown eyes that seemed to light up when he looked at her. He had slight lines at the corners of his eyes now, but this only made him more attractive. His mouth, the curve of which she was certain had been etched permanently into her mind now, lifted slightly at one corner.

"A handsome, topless man bearing coffee? Sign me up," she said, making her way towards the steaming travel mug he held out to her.

"Are you saying I'm handsome?" he said as she took the mug, and he leaned down for a kiss.

She eyed him over the coffee. "You know you are."

He winked at her. "My own ego is one thing, but getting you to admit you think I'm hot is another."

She rolled her eyes and looked down at her watch. "I said 'handsome,' not 'hot,' and I should get out of here before your ego gets any more inflated."

Logan walked her to the front door. "Will you call me when you're done?"

Veronica sipped her coffee. "I'll be working in the lab pretty late if we end up bringing the remains back there today. I'll call you from there once I have a better idea of what we're dealing with."

She saw Logan's jaw twitch with tension as they began to walk to her car. "I wish I could go with you today," he said.

"I know, but I don't think my FBI contact would be thrilled if I showed up with my lover in tow."

"I believe my official title is 'handsome lover,'" he said, and he pulled her in to kiss her on the crown of her head before she got into her car. "Be safe, ok?"

"I will. I'll call you from the lab."

She drove away, watching Logan in her rear view mirror, still topless in his low-slung sweat pants. His neighbors were getting quite the view. The buzzing she still felt from their morning lovemaking combined with her anticipation of the day ahead. She had to get her mind into a working space, and out of a sexy Logan space. She punched the buttons on her car's stereo system until the radio came on and she rolled down her windows to let in some fresh air. Today was going to be intense.

~~~xoxoxoxoxo~~~~

Twelve hours later, Veronica was in her lab, staring at her computer, trying to make sense of the case. There were two skeletons laid out on tables in the bone room, brought there by the FBI from the crime scene earlier that day. They had taken DNA samples and checked for dental records, revealing nothing about the ID of the bodies. She would be working on this for a while.

Veronica had arrived that morning at the scene, a vacant lot near the docks, to meet her FBI contact, Sara Solomon. She and Sara had known each other since they interned together at the FBI ten summers ago, and had kept in touch over the years. Sara also hailed from southern California and worked out of the FBI's San Diego office. Her partner, Sam Carrasco, was with her. Veronica had never been a big fan of Agent Carrasco—he didn't think short blonde women were capable of thinking and he tended to write off all of her ideas—but she put up with him for Sara's sake.

The lot had been vacant for fifteen years when the owners decided to build on it six months ago. Construction had begun recently and two bodies had been discovered while the contractors were excavating the lot to build the foundation. As was procedure when human remains are found at a building site, the contractor called the police, who then called in the FBI given that the case was near the port and might be linked to other ongoing investigations happening there. The FBI brought in an anthropologist, in this case Dr. Veronica Mars.

The team had immediately begun to work on photographing the scene and collecting all the important data. Veronica had examined the skeletons—two of them, found side by side approximately six feet under the surface of the earth, female according to the shape of the pelvic bones. After bringing the skeletons back to the lab, she and her graduate assistant had figured out the rate of decomposition and determined that the women had been dead for approximately twelve years. The lot had been vacant at the time, making it an easy dumping ground for bodies.

The police and the FBI suspected the bodies were connected to the Sorokin family. Veronica knew this already thanks to Gory tipping her off with his request that she deflect attention away from his family, but she was eager to hear what connected the dots between the bodies and the Sorokins. Sara and Sam filled her in on the details. Thirteen years ago, a shipping container had turned up at the docks and before it got picked up, an anonymous tip to the police indicated that the container had people inside of it. Sure enough, when the police opened the container, they found seventeen Russian women inside. Russian mobs sometimes used container ships as a means of bringing prostitutes into the country; similar cases had been documented at ports around the US and in other countries as well.

The women were alive, but barely. While the container had been on the ship, someone had been providing them with food and water through a hatch, but when the container was moved to the docks, nobody came to pick it up. The women couldn't unlock the door from the inside, so they were trapped in there until someone heard them screaming. They had been thirsty and hungry, but they were alive. After the FBI interviewed the women and determined that they had no idea who was in charge of the grand scheme the US had deported the women back to Russia. The FBI suspected the Sorokin family was involved—the Sorokins ran a prostitution ring in the city that specialized in Russian girls—but they could never make the case stick.

And then the bodies had turned up. Two female skeletons found near the location of the container from thirteen years ago. Date of death estimated around the same time the container showed up. They had to be connected, especially if Gory was so worried about it. Veronica wanted to bring Sara in on her situation with Gory, but she had to be careful. She suspected Gory, or whoever he was working with, had a connection inside either the police force or the FBI, and if there was a mole, that person couldn't know how Veronica intended to proceed.

 _Better for him—or her—to just think I'm playing along with Gory's wishes,_  Veronica thought to herself as she stared at her computer trying to piece things together. Technically, it was her job to ID the bodies and determine cause of death, but she was caught up in the rest of the story now too. Her crime investigation instincts were firing on all cylinders, but she needed more.

Agent Solomon and Agent Carrasco had gone back to their office and left Veronica with her team in the lab. They would be working for a while yet. Veronica knew she should check in with Logan, but she didn't want to call from any phone that might be tapped. That ruled out her lab and office phones as well as her cell phone. She had anticipated this problem—her father had trained her well—and had stopped by Target on the way from the port to the lab to pick up a disposable cell phone. This would hopefully get her by until she had time to set up a new phone number.

She told her lab colleagues that she was heading out to get some coffee and offered to bring back some for everyone. She then made her way out of the building and began walking down the block towards a campus coffee shop that stayed open late to cater to students. Before she picked up the coffee, however, she stopped to sit down on a bench and make some phone calls.

Her first call was to Mac. Her computer genius friend was now working for Google out of their LA office. Veronica and Mac didn't see each other often, but they kept in touch via phone and the internet, sometimes spending hours G-chatting about their lives while they worked from their computers.

She hoped Mac would answer the phone in spite of the strange number, and after the third ring she got an answer.

"Hello, this is Mac," her friend said.

"Mac, this is Veronica. Sorry I'm calling from a strange number, but I need to talk to you about something."

"Bond calling her Q on a secret line? I would expect nothing less. What's happening?"

"How long would it take you to access the San Diego port shipping records from thirteen years ago?"

Mac laughed. "It's been a long time since you've asked me for the fun kind of favor. That's pretty far back to go, but the port was computerized at the time, so the records should be there. It might take a day or so to get back their security—the government keeps this stuff locked down pretty tight, you know—but I can give it a try."

Veronica let out a sigh of relief, "Mac, you're a lifesaver, as always."

"I know," Mac said cheerfully. "Can you tell me what this is about?"

"Not much, not yet. I need information regarding a container that came into the port thirteen years ago." She gave Mac the shipping container's tracking number and the name of the ship that had delivered it. "Anything you can find out about who the container was intended for would be amazing."

"Alrighty, I'm on it. I'm glad you called, I was getting bored with my legitimate work. How are things going in San Diego since you moved?"

"They've been interesting, to say the least. Look, I want to talk longer but I need to call Logan. Can we touch base tomorrow?"

"Whaaaaat?!" Mac said, "Do you mean Logan as in Logan Echolls? You guys are talking again?"

"Yes, you busted me. It's a story I don't have time to get into right now, but Logan is in San Diego now too and things have gotten, uh, complicated. I'll fill you in later, I promise."

Mac just chuckled. "Ok V. I'll let you know once I find anything."

Veronica smiled as she clicked the phone shut. It was good to hear her friend's voice, and she actually looked forward to discussing her boy problems with Mac. Mac knew what had happened between her and Logan over the years, and she had always been patient with Veronica, never pushing her to act in a certain way. She was a great sounding board. But she knew Mac and Logan were still friends. They had gotten close when he was dating her roommate, Parker, and had stayed friends even after the breakup. This actually made her feel better, because Mac would probably have some insights into Logan's personality that could help her deal with whatever was going on between them now.

And now to deal with the man himself. She dialed his number and he picked up on the first ring.

"Hello?" he asked anxiously, and Veronica knew he had been waiting for her call.

"Hey Logan, it's me," she said.

"Veronica, thank god. I've been on pins and needles all day. How are you? Is everything ok?"

"Everything is coming along," she said. "It looks like the bodies tie the Sorokin family to a mysterious shipping container full of prostitutes that was abandoned at the port thirteen years ago. The FBI is working to make the connection while I'm working to ID the bodies. If these bodies turn out to be young Russian females, it's going to light up a big sign pointing towards the Sorokins. My team and I are working on the ID, and I've got Mac helping me find out more about the shipping container."

"Whoa, you brought Mac in on this?" Logan asked.

"She's the best hacker I know, and I can get her to work freelance for me so the FBI doesn't know what I'm up to."

"Your brain amazes me, Mars. And I'm glad Mac's on the case. After this all blows over we should invite her down for a visit, get the old Neptune crew together. I know Dick would like to see her."

Veronica was confused. "Dick wants to see Mac?"

Logan chuckled. "Let's just say he's harbored a little crush since college."

Veronica shook her head. "That blonde bimbo will never cease to amaze me. Look, I need to get back to the lab. I want to get this case going in the right direction. The Sorokins are clearly responsible for this if they are trying to blackmail me into helping them, and I want to make sure they pay."

"Uh, that's great honey, but do you have a plan for how to deal with the whole, 'You pin the case on us, we kill your boyfriend' issue?"

"I've been thinking about that all day. I think the best thing to do right now is wait for Gory to contact me again. The results are so preliminary that even if there is a mole somewhere on the case, the Sorokins won't find out much that they don't already know. Gory implied that he had someone he wanted me to pin these bodies on, and I expect he'll fill me in on that soon. And also, you're not my boyfriend, you're my handsome lover."

"I'm not your boyfriend  _yet_ , Veronica," Logan countered.

"That's a conversation for another time, hot shot. Listen, I need to get back to the lab and put in a few more hours of work."

"Have you had your apartment swept for bugs yet? You're not thinking of staying there tonight, are you?"

Veronica paused. "I was going to go back tonight, but…"

"I want you staying with me," Logan said. "Look, why don't you pack up some things at your place—clothes, whatever you need to get by for a few days. We can even drive into work together in the mornings. We're going to the same place, after all."

Veronica paused, her heart tightening with the familiar fear of being swept up into Logan in the all-consuming way she knew she was capable of. This sounded an awful lot like playing house. They'd only been back in each other's lives for two days, but the circumstances were certainly unique. Her stubborn independence fought inside her mind against her gut instinct telling her to go to Logan's and let him take care of her.

Gut instinct won. "Ok, I'll come over. I should be there by eleven, I'll call you when I'm leaving the lab."

"I'll be waiting," he said. "Go get 'em, bobcat."

"I will. Bye Logan."

She snapped her phone shut and got up from the bench to head for the coffee shop. She held it for a moment in her palm and then started to slip it inside her bag when she heard someone coming up behind her. The campus walkway between the lab and the coffee shop was deserted, but there were enough students around that she figured she was safe. She began to walk when suddenly the person she had heard walking was right next to her.

She turned her head to look. That person was Clarence Wiedman.

 


	10. Chapter 10

~~~Present Day~~~

Logan paced around his house, trying to distract himself. It was 11:30 on Sunday night. He hadn't heard from Veronica since she had called him earlier and he was starting to worry. Scratch that, he was worried as hell, he was terrified. Where was she? She had sounded so calm on the phone, like she had a plan formulated, and he had felt much better after talking to her. But now he was ready to panic. She had said she would call when she was leaving the lab, and that she would be at his place by eleven. But no phone call, no Veronica.

Veronica had always hated it when he had been overbearing, when he called too much, showed that he cared too much. And he had given her the benefit of the doubt, waiting until ten PM before calling the lab himself—she had given him the number this morning in case he needed her—but there was no answer. He tried called her back on the number she had used earlier. Again, no answer, and there was no voice mail set up either.

He tried each number again fifteen minutes later, and again another fifteen minutes after that, until it was 11:30. Either she was ignoring him, or something was wrong. Based on the sex they'd had this morning, and the way she'd sounded on the phone, he didn't think she was ignoring him. She was in a risky situation right now; he had every right to suspect the worst.

And so he called Keith Mars, who picked up after a few rings. "Hello, this is Keith Mars."

"Keith, it's Logan."

"Logan, hi, I was just thinking about you. My lovely daughter found out yesterday that you and I have kept in touch over the years and she was less than pleased."

"Yeah, she mentioned that. Listen, Keith, I'm calling about Veronica. Have you heard from her?"

"Not since yesterday when she left our place."

"I think she might be in trouble."

"Tell me everything, son," Keith said.

Logan filled Keith in on the situation. He didn't care that Veronica had wanted to wait before telling Keith. He couldn't find her right now, and the only person who could help him with her father. Keith listened as Logan explained the situation with the Sorokins and Gory's threats, and Veronica's promises to call him when she planned to leave before coming to his house.

"Logan, do you have the number she called you on earlier?"

"Yes," Logan said, and he looked at his phone display to read the number to Keith.

"I'm going to put a trace on the phone. Hopefully this is all a big misunderstanding. Do you know where she lives?"

"Yeah, I figured it out by accident a few days ago."

"Meet me there as soon as you can. Maybe she's there, blissfully ignoring those who worry about her. If she's not, I have a key. Once we check her place we'll have a better idea of what's going on."

Logan agreed and hung up, already heading to his bedroom to grab his jacket and his wallet and head out to find Veronica. He was nauseous with nerves. This was all part of loving Veronica Mars—she got herself into dangerous situations and scared the shit out of those who loved her. He'd felt this way frequently when they were younger, when he'd wanted to protect her from that idiot undercover agent who strong-armed her to a room at the Camelot, or when he'd burst into the River Stix to get her away from the Fitzpatricks.

He got into his Range Rover and drove as quickly as he could to Veronica's apartment building, waiting for Keith to call him when he got there. Keith arrived soon after Logan and they went upstairs and knocked on her door. No answer. Keith got out his keys and they let themselves inside.

They didn't find much. There was no evidence that she had been there any time after that morning. The travel mug Logan had given her sat on her kitchen counter, the clothes she had been wearing yesterday were in the laundry hamper.

"It doesn't look like she came back here to pack her things," Keith said.

Logan nodded. "Did you manage to trace her cell phone yet?"

"I'm working on it. Give me a moment."

Keith went to make a call and Logan looked around at Veronica's apartment. It felt much different than it had the other night, he supposed because of the dramatically altered circumstances. It was typical Veronica, partly moved in, partly still living out of boxes. She had trouble with commitment in more ways than one. He stopped in front of her fridge and stared at a magnet in the shape of a map of Switzerland. He wondered if she associated that magnet with him and their time in Geneva. It wasn't like her to be sentimental, but he couldn't help making the connection.

Keith came into the kitchen. "The phone has been tracked to the UCSD campus. Let's go find it."

They both got in Keith's car and sped to the campus, following the tracker on Keith's smartphone. Logan recognized Veronica's lab, and his hopes went up that maybe she was still inside and had just lost track of time. But then his heart sank as they followed the tracker past the lab and down a sidewalk towards the student union building. Keith stopped suddenly by a park bench.

"The tracker says the phone is within a ten foot radius," he said.

There was nowhere for Veronica to be hidden within ten feet of where they stood. This meant she had been separated from her phone. They began to look around furiously, looking under the bench, in the grass, near the sewer, when suddenly Logan had an idea. A trashcan sat next to the bench. He pulled the top off, looked inside, reached his hand in to move things around, and said, "Aha!"

He pulled the phone out of the trashcan and Keith came running over.

"Well, we found the phone, but where the hell is Veronica?" Logan said.

Keith ran his hand over his bald head. "Give me that," he said, and he took the phone from Logan. He pressed a button and the screen came to life. "Look, she was in the process of typing a text message when she dropped the phone in the garbage. What does  _CW_ mean?"

Logan's stomach dropped. "Clarence Wiedman. She thinks Clarence Wiedman is involved with the Sorokins. Who was the text message to?"

"No one."

"I think she was out here when she called me earlier. Is it possible that she typed the letters and then dropped the phone when Wiedman wasn't looking?"

Keith mulled this over. "It's possible. Is Wiedman still Jake Kane's right hand man?"

"As far as I know. Veronica mention him and the Kanes being involved with that group she exposed her freshman year at Hearst."

"Yeah, the Castle. She got busted stealing Jake Kane's hard drive right when I was running for sheriff. After I lost the election I had some time to look into what she had dug up. She went easy on them, she could have exposed a lot more than she did."

"That's what I'm worried about. She thinks this goes beyond just the Sorokins."

Keith looked at the phone again. "Here's what we know. The phone Veronica called you from is in a trashcan near her lab with the letters "CW" typed into an unsent text message. She thinks Clarence Wiedman is involved. What we have to figure out is where do we look next?"

"Kane Software?" Logan suggested. "Wiedman's office is probably still there."

"That's one option. If he's working with the Sorokins he could have taken her to them. They tend to gather at a bar called Pushkin's in a seedy part of town down by the docks."

"What should we do? We have to find her, Keith, as soon as we can."

"Well, we're closer to the docks than we are to Kane Software, so let's head that way first."

They got back in the car and made their way through the city toward the port, not speaking until they pulled up across the street and down the block from Pushkin's.

"Listen to me, Logan. I want you to stay in the car while I go inside to see if there's any reason to believe she's here," Keith said.

"But what about—"

"You need to stay here, Logan. The Sorokins have already threatened you to get Veronica to cooperate. If you show up, all hell could break loose really fast."

"Oh, and her father showing up won't lead to the same thing? Keith, I need to find her. You don't understand, I—we—things are, I think they're different now. Finally. I can't lose her."

Keith put his hand on Logan's shoulder. "I know. We're not gonna lose her. Just let me do what I do best. Wait here for me. It shouldn't take long to get a read on the situation." Keith then reached into his glove compartment and pulled out a gun. He handed it to Logan and asked, "Do you know how to use this?"

Logan nodded.

Keith continued, "I have a gun in my holster. I want you to hang onto this one in case something happens. Be smart, Logan. Only use it if you have to."

Logan watched as Keith got out of the car and walked down the block to the bar. He clenched his fists and stared at the gun in his hands. It was after 2am. His body was running on adrenaline. He hated sitting here doing nothing. He needed a way to make the time go by. He tried working in his head on the plot of a new short story he had started before Friday's showdown at Zito's, but it was fruitless. Thinking about anything but Veronica at this point was impossible.

After fifteen minutes of Keith being inside the bar, Logan started to worry. He knew Keith was a pro, but with nothing to do but wait around, he was starting to conjure up all sorts of worst case scenarios in his mind about what could have happened to Veronica. After thirty minutes, he couldn't stand waiting any longer. He was zipping up his jacket, getting ready to leave the vehicle and head to Pushkin's himself when he heard gunshots.

Logan was out of the car in a flash, holding his gun cautiously. The shots were coming from the opposite direction of Pushkin's. He didn't care that running towards gunshots in the middle of the night down by the docks was an insanely dangerous idea. Veronica was missing, she might be here. He had to find her.

He ran down the street away from the car and the bar, and then heard a shout in the same direction as where the gunshots had come from. He turned down an alley between two massive warehouses and saw light coming out of a door at the opposite end of the alley. Two men were standing in the alley by the door, arguing.

Logan ducked behind a dumpster where he could stay out of sight for a moment and catch his breath before deciding what to do. He overheard parts of the argument floating down the alley.

"…had to do this? You had to do this?" a voice with a Russian accent said, sounding agonized.

"…for the best… you've known this was a possibility… multiple warnings…"

Logan knew that voice. It was Clarence Wiedman. His blood began to boil.

"…but this girl…what are we supposed to…" the Russian voice went on.

That was it. Logan emerged from behind the dumpster and began to walk down the alley towards the two men, pointing the gun at them.

"Where is she?" he shouted, and Wiedman and the other man turned to face him. "I know you have her, Wiedman. Where the hell is she?"

Clarence Wiedman considered Logan as he strode towards them. "Ah, Mr. Echolls. I'm not surprised to see you."

Logan wasn't sure what he expected Wiedman to say, but it wasn't that. "Where. Is. She," he said slowly as he approached.

"It seems we've had a bit of a misunderstanding here. You can put that weapon down," Wiedman said.

"No. You kidnap my girl and take her down here and I hear gunshots? I will not hesitate to use this," Logan said, nodding toward the handgun.

Logan noticed the other guy for the first time. He was an older man, strong, with leathery skin and gray hair. His face looked red and damp, as though he had been crying. Logan turned his face back to Wiedman's. "What is going on here?"

The older man spoke up, his voice high with nerves and emotion, pointing at Wiedman. "He shot my nephew. He shot him, and he's dead!"

Wiedman looked extremely irritated with his Russian friend. "Lev, please," he said, then turned his attention back to Logan. "It seems Mr. Sorokin's nephew tried to do a bit of blackmailing without the blessing of those who oversee him. I was sent in to rectify the situation. You can put your gun down now, Mr. Echolls."

Logan couldn't take this shit any longer. He motioned with his gun towards the open door. "Inside, now. Take me to Veronica."

Clarence had the gall to roll his eyes, but he pushed the older man, Lev, towards the door and followed behind Logan. They entered a large warehouse. When they got inside, Logan saw a body, lying prone on the floor halfway down an aisle between two towering stacks of wooden crates. At the very end of the aisle across the warehouse he saw a tiny blonde figure tied to a chair, with her mouth bound.

"Veronica!" he shouted. He saw her wiggling in the chair, trying to get free from the ropes that tied her there.

Wiedman looked at Logan. "You know, if you want to save 'your girl,' you'll have to put that gun down to untie those bindings."

Logan felt his temper surge and he leaned towards Wiedman with the gun, his mouth open to tell Wiedman exactly what he thought of that plan.

"Logan!" he heard before he could say anything. Keith was standing in the door. "Logan, I'm here now, and the police are on their way."

"Veronica is down there, she's tied up, I—"

Keith pointed his gun at Wiedman and Lev. "I can handle these two. Who's on the floor?"

"I think it's Gory, and if Uncle Lev's tears are any indication, he's dead," Logan replied.

"You go down and untie Veronica. I'll wait here with these two."

Logan uncocked the gun and took off down the aisle, sidestepping the body and making his way to Veronica.

"Veronica, it's ok, I'm here, we're here now," he said as he knelt down to untie the bandana that was gagging her. His fingers shook but he finally got the knot undone and pulled it away from her face."

"Oh my god, Logan, I am so happy to see you right now," she said, and tears glistened in her eyes.

"Not as happy as I am to see you," he said, working on the knots behind her back.

"Wiedman found me on campus. He made me go with him. I was able to type his initials into a text and toss my phone in the garbage without him noticing."

Logan pulled the last of the rope free and pulled Veronica up into his arms, kissing the top of her head, never wanting to let her go. "You did the right thing. We found the phone. I called your dad, he traced it. What the hell happened here?"

Veronica's small arms reached around him and he felt her trembling in his arms. "Clarence said he was bringing me to the docks to 'show me something,' but when we got here, Gory was waiting. He blindsided Clarence and grabbed me and ran. He ducked into this warehouse and tied me up. He was…he was going to…he said he wanted to…"

Her voice cracked and she couldn't say anymore and Logan lifted her up into his arms, holding her under her knees and behind her back, looping her arms around his neck. He was reminded of the night he had carried her home after Cassidy Casablancas jumped off the roof of the Neptune Grand. "Shhh, just hold onto me, Veronica. Your dad is here. You don't have to tell me everything right now."

Logan walked back down the aisle, sidestepping Gory's body again, and reached Keith just as the police were arriving at the warehouse. Keith nodded at him and came over as soon as the cops had taken control of the situation.

"Hi Dad," Veronica said weakly from Logan's arms.

Keith ran his hand over her hair. "Veronica, are you ok?"

"I will be," she said. "You guys saved me."

"Logan saved you. I just helped. Listen, there's an ambulance waiting outside. Are you hurt at all, Veronica?"

"Not really, just a little sore from being tied up."

"Logan, take her outside so the EMT's can make sure she's ok. I'm going to fill the police in on what we know."

A little while later, Veronica sat on the edge of the ambulance, her legs dangling down, a blanket wrapped around her. Logan sat next to her. She didn't have any major injuries, but she was shaken up. She shivered and he pulled her closer.

"Gory was going rogue," Veronica said. "He came to me on his own and made the threat."

"So his family didn't know about it?" Logan asked.

Veronica shook her head. "Not until his beefy driver ratted him out. I guess old Evgeni wasn't so trustworthy."

"What is Wiedman doing here?"

Veronica shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure what the connection is. I had just finished talking to you on the phone when Wiedman found me. He told me to come with him, and when I resisted, he flashed his gun at me. I managed to ditch the phone just in time."

"And Wiedman brought you here?"

"He brought me to that sketchy bar over there, Pushkin's. We parked outside, but Gory was waiting for him and he knocked Clarence down and grabbed me and just took off."

Logan wrapped both of his arms around her and pulled her into an embrace. "I was so worried, Veronica, I didn't know what to do."

"You did the right thing. You called my dad. You found me."

"Yeah, but…" his voice began to break. "I couldn't handle it if anything happened to you."

"I'll be ok," she whispered. "Logan, you're always rescuing me."

He felt the tears welling in his eyes. "I'd go to the ends of the earth for you."

They held each other quietly, neither willing to let go. After a while, Keith came outside and walked towards them. Logan notice Clarence Wiedman shaking hands with one of the policemen.

"Keith, what is going on?" Logan asked.

"It's an interesting situation," Keith said. "It seems Wiedman was trying to save Veronica from Gory's blackmail plot, or so he claims."

"By flashing a gun at her on campus?" Logan asked angrily.

Keith sighed. "It's hard to explain. We need to take Veronica down to the station so she can give her statement. You'll need to give a statement too, Logan."

"Where is Wiedman going?" Logan asked.

"He's agreed to speak with the police tomorrow," Keith replied.

"They're just letting him leave? He shot and killed Gory!" Logan said.

Keith surveyed the two young people, who were still holding onto each other. "Wiedman has a, uh, special relationship with the police in this district. There's a lot you two don't know about, having been gone for a while."

"Does it have to do with the Castle?" Veronica asked, and Logan and Keith were both surprised to hear her speak up. She sounded exhausted.

Keith looked at them for a moment before he spoke. "I want you two out of this mess from here on out, ok? It isn't safe for you to be poking around in this stuff."

"Uh, in case you forgot, Dad, I was asked to poke around and break the law. I didn't have a choice but to get involved," Veronica said.

"I know you didn't, honey. You did what you had to do. Gory was a loose cannon. He was acting alone. When he realized he had been caught he decided his only choice was to hurt you. But his little blackmail side project ticked off a lot of people and he paid for it," Keith said.

"This is so seriously fucked up," Logan muttered.

"Yeah, it is. But now that we're all safe and sound here, we need to get you two to the station, get the statements out of the way, and get you both home."

"I have to teach in the morning, Dad, and so does Logan," Veronica said wearily.

"We'll call your department heads and let them know you can't come in. Which reminds me—have I told either of you how scary it is that you two are professors? I would never send my kind to UCSD."

Veronica reached her arm out and punched her father lightly on the arm. "You said you were proud of me. And I'm a professor. Logan is technically just an instructor since he doesn't have an advanced degree."

Keith pulled Veronica into a hug and winked at Logan over her head. "Sure, honey, whatever you say. And I am proud of you. Now let's get to the station."

~~~xoxoxoxo~~~

When Veronica opened her eyes, she was confused. The light in her bedroom was all wrong. The light was coming from the wrong direction. She saw her alarm clock on her night stand. It read 4:35. She squinted to see where the little dot next to the time was, and found that it was PM, not AM. The light was on the wrong side because she was waking up in the afternoon, not the morning.

Veronica sat up, feeling groggy, and realized she wasn't alone in her bed. Logan was sprawled out next to her, snoring softly. Her memory began to click into gear and she recalled what was going on. She and Logan had been at the police station with her father until mid-morning, and afterwards Keith had brought them both back to her apartment. There were no bugs, he said.

No bugs, and no information, or at least not any information that Veronica was yet privy to. Her father knew more than he was letting on, she could tell, and he was trying to protect her by keeping her in the dark. She had sensed that all morning. She gave her statement, and was completely honest about what had happened. For some reason, her father didn't think it was weird that the police had let Wiedman go. The detective who took her statement seemed to be under the impression that Wiedman had meant her no harm and had in fact meant to protect her.

It was all so strange. When Wiedman had walked up to her to her, she hadn't been that surprised to see him. She had suspected he was involved in this.

"Hello, Dr. Mars," he had said.

"Clarence Wiedman," she had replied. "What are the odds?"

"Dr. Mars, there has been a misunderstanding which I need to speak with you about."

"Aw, how sweet, are you asking me out on a date?" she had quipped.

She never could get Wiedman to crack a smile. "If you could come with me immediately, Dr. Mars, it would be most convenient," he had said. He flashed the gun under his jacket and she'd gotten the message. Wiedman took her to a black SUV behind a nearby building and off they'd gone toward Pushkin's.

Not that she had had any idea what was going on. She had managed to ditch her cell phone in the hopes that Logan would find a way to track it. She had trusted him in that moment, she realized. She didn't know if it would work, but she trusted that he would try to find her and any clue she could leave would only help matters.

Veronica turned on her side and propped her head up on her hand so she could study Logan while he slept.  _Trust is a funny thing_ , she thought to herself. That had been one of their biggest problems when they fell in love the first time. He had wanted so badly for her to trust him, and she hadn't been able to do it. Part of it was her own insecurity. Logan had always seemed like he was on a different level than her. He was so confident in himself. Lilly had chosen him to be her boyfriend even when he was a year younger than her and one of her little brother's friends. After Lilly died, he had been a player, dating seemingly every pneumatic 09er chick who came across his path. The world had been his oyster and he didn't hesitate to enjoy it.

Even when Veronica had been popular, she had been much more shy than Lilly, and she and Duncan had seemed to have their own quieter world in Logan and Lilly's shadow. Veronica was self-conscious about her small build, thinking that men wanted women with more curves. Duncan assured her otherwise, but she saw the way men looked at Lilly. She saw the way Logan looked at Lilly.

When she and Logan had been together, that insecurity had crept back in. Their relationship had sprung out of nowhere, surprising them both with its intensity. She remembered the second time he kissed her, when she asked what they were doing and he had replied, "I have no idea." Neither of them had known how to handle their feelings, they just knew they were drawn to each other by a force that they didn't have a chance of fighting.

Veronica hadn't understood at the time how strongly Logan felt about her. He had confessed his love during that first summer they were together, but she didn't know if she believed him or not. She had been badly damaged by the previous year, dealing with her breakup with Duncan and the aftermath of Shelly Pomroy's party. It wouldn't have mattered if Logan had presented her with a diamond ring and professed his undying love in the back seat of the Xterra. She didn't believe that anyone could love her like that.

She believed differently now. Things had been rocky over the years, but Logan had proved to her, again and again, that he loved her. She hadn't been sure of this after their encounter on Friday, but she was sure of it now. She felt it when he touched her, when he looked at her, when he saved her. And knowing that enabled her to trust him.

She reached her hand out now to touch him. Her fingers skimmed over his shoulder and she longed to put her mouth where her hands had been, but he began to wake up before she had the chance.

"Hey," he said, his voice gruff with sleep. "What time is it?"

"About quarter to five. We slept the day away." They had arrived back at her apartment around eleven in the morning, after getting some food in their stomachs at a local diner, and had been so tired by the time they got to her place they had both fallen into bed and fallen asleep almost immediately. Logan had stripped down to a t-shirt and his boxer briefs, while Veronica had changed into an oversized shirt and her pajama bottoms.

"Hmm, that we did," Logan said, reaching out to pull her towards him. She dove into his arms. "How are you feeling? Have you been awake for long?"

"I'm feeling okay. Pretty confused. I need to talk to my dad about this in depth, and soon. But not right now, not tonight. I just woke up a few minutes ago. I was watching you sleep."

"That's kind of creepy, Veronica," he said, tickling her side so she squirmed.

"No it's not. I was just doing some thinking and you happened to be in my line of sight."

"What were you thinking about?" he asked softly, running his fingers lightly along her spine.

"Trust," she said.

Logan's hand stopped. "Trust? That word is in your vocabulary?" he joked.

She took a deep breath. "I know I haven't always been good at it." Logan raised an eyebrow. "Ok," she continued, "I'm bad at it. Or, I  _was_  bad at it. I'm getting better now."

"Are you?" he asked, and she could read the worry on his face. This subject was always a thorny one for them.

"Yeah, I am. I was thinking about how, when I left my phone for you to find, I did it because I trusted you to look for me. I wasn't sure if you would find the phone or not, but I just…knew that you would do everything you could to find me once you figured out I was missing."

Logan looked at her, his eyes a mix of incredulity and joy. "You know I would do anything for you. Haven't I been telling you that since we were seventeen?"

"You've been telling me that since we were seventeen, but I didn't actually hear you say it until recently. I'm almost as bad at listening as I am at trusting. But I'm working on that too."

Logan reached his hand up to cup her cheek. He swallowed, and then he said it: "I love you, Veronica. I've been saying that to you for a long time too. Are you ready to hear that, too?"

Veronica's heart swelled and she felt her blood coursing through her veins as if she was aware of him with every cell of her being. She nodded. "I'm ready."

He pulled her head to his and kissed her forehead. "I won't ask you if you return the sentiment, I won't force you to say anything, but—"

"Logan," she said, putting her hand on his chest to push back so she could see his eyes. "I love you too. I know I've never said that, but I have loved you, in my own way, for so long. I was just too stubborn to know it. I didn't hear you, but… I didn't hear myself either."

The expression on Logan's face when she said, "I love you too," was priceless. He was trying to suppress a grin and stay with the serious tone of the conversation, but he couldn't quite do it. His face lit up and she felt him pulling her toward him. He kissed her, effectively ending her talking by pulling her bottom lip between his and bringing her in close. They kissed for a while and he rolled onto his back, bringing her on top of him. She loved how their bodies fit together.

He pulled his head back for a moment. "This feels too good to be true. You finally tell me that you trust me  _and_  that you love me?"

"Well, I did get held hostage by a crazy dude last night, and there's some kind of elaborate crime ring that my dad wants me to know nothing about, so I wouldn't say it's  _all_  good. But things are looking up."

"So what does this mean for us?" Logan asked, his face growing serious.

Veronica sat up and straddled him, her hands on his chest. "It means we're in love with each other and we have to figure out how to not fuck it up this time?"

Logan started to reach his hands up along her sides but before he could get a grip on her she had slipped off of him, running out of the room towards the kitchen. Maybe they should eat before they really got into this conversation?

~~~xoxoxoxo~~~

Logan followed Veronica out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where he found her looking inside her fridge.

"Running away, are we?" he said.

Veronica smiled sheepishly. "I just felt… hungry all of a sudden."

"Of course you did," Logan said, coming up behind her and reaching around to shut the fridge door. He then turned her around and put his hands around her hips, lifting her up until she sat on the countertop, her legs dangling, her face more level with his. "You're not getting away that easily."

He leaned in and began to nuzzle her neck, his arms going around her waist. She laughed at the ticklishness, but the laugh quickly transitioned into a moan. He knew she loved it when he touched her there. He pulled back for a moment and looked at her, his eyes willing her to speak.

"I'm not running, I promise," she said, her hand reaching up to caress the stubble of his cheek. "But we just found each other again three days ago. And a lot has happened in those three days. We can't just, I don't know, live happily ever after now."

Logan knew she was right, but he also knew that he had to fight for what he wanted with her. "I told you that I won't accept anything less than everything with you this time, Veronica, and I meant it. You're right, a lot has happened in the last few days. But the way I see it, we finally made it back to each other, and we have to make up for lost time."

Veronica looked around, and he realized she was surveying her apartment. "Please don't panic, Veronica. I'm not saying we should run off to Vegas and get married right away. I'm not even saying we should move in together right away."

Her shoulders relaxed, but a worry line creased between her eyebrows. "You're not?"

"I know you'll feel better if you have your own place, Veronica. For now. If there's anything I've learned over the years, it's that you are the most fiercely independent person I know, and pushing you into anything is a recipe for one angry Veronica."

She pulled him in and planted a light kiss on his mouth. "Thank you," she said softly. "Thank you for knowing me so well. And for being patient with me."

Logan nipped at her bottom lip. "Oh, trust me, I'm not that patient. We'll be having a lot of sleepovers."

They met in a kiss that was sweet at first. They tasted each other, the dynamic lighter now that the immediate danger of the situation was gone. Logan knew things weren't over yet in that arena; even if Keith wanted them to stay out of it, Veronica would never leave it alone. But that was a problem they could deal with tomorrow.

The kiss deepened, and Logan's cock began to rise to full attention. He'd been semi-hard since he woke up, but now that they had talked about things—Veronica had told him she loved him, miracle of miracles—his body was ready for more.

Apparently Veronica's body was ready for more as well. She wound her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him in until they collided. As soon as he felt the heat between her thighs his hands went under the hem of her t-shirt and found her bare skin. He ran his hands over her stomach and up to her breasts, her nipples hardening into his palms as he cupped her.

"Mmm, Logan," she said against his mouth, and she unwound her hands to tug at the hem of her shirt, lifting it over her head until she was bared before him.

He ducked his head down to capture her right nipple in his mouth. He loved the feeling of her against his tongue. Her hands went to his hair and ran along his scalp as he suckled her. He moved his mouth to her other breast and he felt her legs tightening around him. Her hands found the hem of his shirt, too, and he moved away from her briefly so she could pull it over his head.

His hands came back to her and went to her waist, slipping under the elastic band of her pajama bottoms. He found nothing underneath, and he smiled mischievously at her. "Someone's not wearing any underwear," he said, sliding his hands lower, cupping her ass.

She laughed sexily and slid her hands down into the waistband of his boxer briefs. She ran her hands around until they came into contact with his cock where it was fighting to be freed from the confines of the fabric. She pulled the elastic back and looked down at him as she took him into her hands. "I do love your cock," she said.

He groaned at the feel of her hands on him and he lifted her hips so he could slide her pajama bottoms down, pulling them completely off her feet and letting them fall to the floor. He pushed his boxer briefs down and kicked them off. Veronica wrapped her legs back around his waist and they came into contact, his hardness with her damp heat, and fell into another passionate kiss.

Soon she reached down and guided him to her entrance. He gripped her hips as he slid into her, relishing the feel of her muscles clenching around him, pulling him deeper. When he had filled her completely, he pulled her hips off the counter slightly so he could get a better angle.

Veronica let her head fall back and she smiled, her eyes hazy. He pulled out slowly and then thrust back in, and she cried out in satisfaction. "Fuck me, Logan," she said, and he obliged, pumping in and out of her, her legs tightening around him to pull him deeper. He kissed her on the mouth, their tongues mimicking what the rest of their bodies were doing, and then he trailed kisses down her neck to her breasts, teasing her nipple with his tongue and then lightly biting it between his teeth.

Veronica's hands roamed over his back and then down to his waist, pulling him towards her with her hands as strong legs crossed behind his back. He released her breast from his mouth and fucked her hard, just how he knew she liked it, and was rewarded with another laugh transitioning into a moan of pleasure. He shifted his angle again and he felt her pleasure building, her skin flushing that beautiful shade of pink.

"I'm gonna come," she said, her legs tightened even more, pulling him in so she could grind her clit against him. "Come with me," she begged, breathless. He pounded into her at that angle, his hands coming up to cradle her back, his mouth coming to her neck, and soon she let out a cry and arched her back, her inner muscles gripping him in waves as the orgasm tore through her body.

As her tremors squeezed his cock he felt his balls tightening and he knew there was no going back. He slammed into her as deep as he could go, pulling her into him with one hand on her lower back while the other cradled the back of her head. His fingers tangled with her hair and he heard himself shout her name as he came, pulsing inside her, filling her with his semen until he could give her no more.

They clung to each other, their breathing fast, their bodies flushed with a sheen of sweat, and as his head began to clear he heard her laughing, her voice sounding sated. "I am so fucking in love with you," she said into his ear.

He tightened his arms around her. "I am so fucking in love with  _you_ ," he replied, and he found her mouth to kiss her again and emphasize his point.

When he was capable, he lifted her off the counter and carried her over to the living room couch. A soft blanket waited there for them, and he sat down on it and pulled it around them so they were cocooned inside the warmth, their bodies still skin to skin, still coming down from the high of their lovemaking.

He held Veronica on his lap, her head resting against his shoulder as he pulled her close. "You know, between my house and your apartment, we have a lot of, uh, surface area to break in."

She laughed. "Don't think I wasn't scoping out that nice new butcher's block countertop you just put in," she said.

His heart swelled and his cock twitched at the thought. "I knew that investment would pay off," he said.

Veronica rested her hand against his chest. "This is good," she said. "Our timing is finally right. We can do this, can't we?"

He tilted her head back so he could look into her eyes. "We can definitely do this."

He kissed her and he knew they could. It wouldn't be easy—nothing was ever easy for them. But no one writes songs about the ones that come easy. Their epic love song was one hell of a tune, and they were just getting started.


	11. Epilogue

~~~Five days later~~~

Saturday morning. Veronica still slept, her hair tousled around her face, wrapped up in the covers she had stolen during the night. Logan watched her from across the room where he stood by his dresser, the bottom drawer open. He had woken a few minutes ago, stirred awake in the middle of a dream where he was on a beach. He'd been enjoying the dream beach, feeling the sun on his face, when he looked down at his right palm and saw that he held a rock. The sight of the rock triggered something and suddenly he was sitting up in bed, awake, the beach fading while his mind sharpened.

He had gone immediately to his dresser and pulled open the bottom drawer, searching for a shoebox tucked way in the back. When his hands found the box, he pulled it out and set it in top of the dresser, lifting the lid. Inside were various items he had that he couldn't find a reason to get rid of. There, in the corner of the box, he found the rock.

He held it in his palm now. It was the rock Veronica had given him years ago on the beach at Big Sur.  _"I'd offer you a penny for your thoughts, but I don't have a penny, so here's a rock instead,"_  she had said. He'd slipped the rock inside his pocket and had forgotten about it until it fell out in the wash back in New York. He hadn't been able to get rid of it over the years, although a few times he had been tempted, especially over the last two years. No matter what, though, he always slipped it back in the box.

He was glad he had kept it. He walked back to the bed and slid in beside Veronica. She was lying on her stomach, and he placed the rock on her shoulder. She stirred when she felt his hand there, and her eyes slowly drifted open, a dreamy smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. She twitched her shoulder when she felt something there and the rock slid down to the sheets in front of her face.

"What is that?" she said as her eyes focused on the object. "Is that a rock? Why is there a rock in your bed?"

Logan said nothing as her fingers found the stone and she looked it over, rubbing her fingers across to feel the texture. Suddenly her vision sharpened and a look of surprised recognition crossed her face.

"Is this the rock I gave you, like, a million years ago?" she asked, the genuine delight in her face contradicting her joking words.

Logan nodded. "Sure is, bobcat," he said. "I tossed that thing in the back of my dresser a million years ago and forgot about it until I woke up in the middle of a dream about the beach and I remembered it." This wasn't strictly true—he hadn't forgotten about the rock at all, in fact he looked at it every so often when he thought of her but couldn't reach out to her—but he didn't need to give her more leverage in their casual "who pined after who harder over the years" competition.

Veronica reached her hand out to touch his face and she pulled him in for a kiss. "I love you," she said, her breath against his lips. "Have I told you that lately?"

Logan nodded, his nose gently rubbing against hers, a grin spreading across his face as he kissed her again. He couldn't hold his feelings back from her, he wore his heart on his sleeve, and it was still so amazing to him that he could finally be completely open with her, giving her every part of himself. Holding back was not his strong suit.

He felt Veronica slide her hand down to his chest and she gently pushed him so he rolled onto his back. Undoubtedly the best thing to happen to him in the last week—other than Veronica finally opening up to love him, and to trust him—was the hot, hot sex. He and Veronica had always had incredible chemistry, but now that they were both adults who knew what they wanted in bed and how to communicate those wants to one another, the sex was on another level.

He could see that she wanted to be in the driver's seat this morning, which was fine with him. He lay back as she kissed him on the mouth, then on the neck, down his collarbone to his chest, rubbing her thumbs over his nipples as she went. As she moved her mouth down to his navel, she grasped for the rock where it sat on the sheets and placed it on his solar plexus, leaving it there as she made her way even lower.

Neither of them wore anything—they were still hungry enough for each other that wearing clothes to bed was an impracticality—so her hands easily found his hardening cock and wrapped around him. He let his head back with a sigh at her touch, and she kissed him around the base of his cock, on the insides of his thighs, and then finally took him into her mouth, swirling her tongue over the head and sucking lightly.

"Veronica," he growled, loving the feel of her mouth on him like this. He braced himself on his elbows so he could watch her, her perfect lips rounded as she sucked him deeper. Her eyes flicked up as she caught him watching, and she slid him out of her mouth and smiled like the cat that got the cream. She pumped him once with her hand, then slid him back into her mouth and continued to go down on him. He could have blacked out with the pleasure she gave him.

He felt her moaning with him in her mouth and he saw that she had reached one of her hands down to touch herself. She always got really wet when she gave him head—he thanked his lucky stars again that the woman he loved loved to suck cock. Her moans indicated that she was sufficiently worked up, and he ran his hand down to caress her head.

"I want to be inside you," he said gruffly, and she let him slide out of her mouth with a pop, her lips glistening with the moisture of her efforts. She crawled slowly up his body and straddled him, taking him into her hands and positioning him at her entrance. He put his hands on her milky white thighs and watched as she sank down onto him, her eyes closing in ecstasy as she did so.

Once she was fully impaled she began to ride him, the muscles in her legs flexing. She smiled down at him, her hands resting on his chest and then coming up to touch her shoulders, her fingers combing through her hair. She looked like a fierce warrior goddess and he imagined himself as her conquest, her spoils of war. He thrust his hips up, her breasts bouncing with the motion, and he knew he had truly died and gone to heaven.

His hands reached up to cup her breasts and her hands slid down to grip his wrists. He continued to thrust up as she rode, and she cried out each time. He reached one hand down to rub her clit and he she threw her head back. She began to ride him harder, faster, rubbing into his hand while she moved up and down, and he knew she was going to come soon. He gripped her hips and pounded into her from below until he felt her tightening around him, her muscles tensing, squeezing him. She cried out and pushed all the way down onto him, taking him as deep as she could while she came. As she came down from her high he felt his cock begin swell, his balls tightening, and he began to thrust into her one last time as his orgasm began.

She was off of him in a flash, and his eyes flew open in shock, but before he knew what was happening she had his cock inside her mouth again, sucking him deep until he felt his dick hit the back of her throat. He burst into her mouth, his semen shooting into her mouth, crying out loudly with the intensity of the spasms that wracked his body, feeling like he was coming harder than he'd ever come before. She cupped his balls in her hand and swallowed, his dick twitching until he was sure he had given her every last drop, and she slowly slid his highly sensitive organ out of her mouth. It flopped back toward his stomach and he lay there, sprawled out and spent.

"Holy fuck," he said, breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling. "Holy fuck," he repeated, incapable of forming other words.

Veronica crawled back up the bed and lay down next to him, wiping her mouth with a smirk. "Liked that trick, eh?"

He laughed, his eyes still closed, his heart still hammered. "You just literally blew my mind. Remind me to wake you up with sentimental gifts are frequently as possible."

She laughed too and he felt her hand sliding beneath his back, pulling out the rock, which had fallen off to the side while they went at it and ended up underneath him. She lay her head down on his shoulder and placed her palm on his chest. "What do I get when I give you a present?"

"Depends on the present," he said, and she swatted at him lightly. "I hope you don't need me for anything. I don't think I'll be able to walk for a few minutes."

"I'm getting up. I want to start getting ready for everyone to come over later. Throwing barbecues isn't child's play," she said, sitting up in bed.

They were entertaining. Well, technically Logan was entertaining, since it was his house, but the gathering was for both of them. After taking Monday off to rest after the events of the weekend, Veronica was back in the lab and the lecture hall for the rest of the week. Logan encouraged Veronica to take more time if she needed, but unsurprisingly she wanted to be busy rather than sitting around dwelling on what happened and what it mean. He went back to work too, teaching Wednesday and Friday and using the other two days to write.

Mac had called Veronica on Tuesday with the news that she had managed to hack into the port's database and find the relevant shipping logs. Veronica had taken a step back from the case—more the FBI's decision than hers—but she still wanted that information. So she had invited Mac to come down for the weekend from LA. That way she could get the information from Mac and they could also spend time catching up. It had been too long, and Mac wanted a full breakdown of her reunion with Logan.

Logan wanted to see Mac too, so he suggested they have a barbecue at his place on Saturday and "get the gang back together." Keith and Alicia were coming with Wallace, who was in town from New York for the week on business and taking time to visit family and friends. Veronica wanted to invite Weevil and his family along too, and Logan said she if she was inviting Weevil then he was inviting Dick. Everyone would be arriving in the middle of the afternoon.

Logan watched as Veronica got dressed to go downstairs and make some coffee. "Are you excited to see everyone?" he asked.

She smiled. "Yeah, I am. I wonder, though. Do you think they all think it's crazy that we're back together again?"

Logan pondered this. "I don't know. Do you think it's crazy?"

"No," she said. "But these are the people who've seen us go through so many highs and lows together. I know they worry about us."

"For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure they worry more about us when we're apart than when we're together. They're probably relieved. If they're even thinking that hard about it, which they probably aren't."

Veronica knelt beside the bed and kissed him on the forehead. "Yeah, you're right."

Logan reached a head up to touch her face. "Don't worry so much."

"I'll try not to. But you know me."

He pulled her in for a kiss. "Yeah, I do."

~~~xoxoxoxoxoxox~~~

Mac rang the doorbell shortly after one in the afternoon. Veronica was looking forward to spending a few hours with her friend before everyone else arrived for the barbecue. Veronica squealed with excitement as she opened the door and pulled her friend in for a hug.

"You're here!" she cried.

Mac hugged her back and laughed, "Yep, here I am."

Veronica pulled her inside. "How was the drive?"

"Oh, you know, same old interstate. I'm listening to the  _Game of Thrones_  books on tape, though, so time flew by. Nice house!"

"Why thank you," Logan said as he came into the hallway from the kitchen. "May I take your bag, madam?"

"Why certainly, bellhop," Mac replied as Logan gave her a hug. She handed him her bag. "This place is great, although I have to say I'm surprised you didn't bring get some of that classy décor from the Neptune Grand."

"Ah yes, a blue glass fish would really make this place feel like home," Logan said. "I'll take this up to the guest room and then I have to run to the grocery store to pick up some food for later. That way you ladies will have ample time to talk about my sexual prowess."

Mac pulled a face and Veronica swatted at him. "You wish," she said. "We have more important things to talk about than boys, don't we Mac?"

"Most definitely," Mac said.

Logan shrugged his shoulders. "Sure you do," he said, disappearing up the stairs.

Mac laughed as Veronica took her arm and led her through the kitchen to the back deck. "So, have you officially moved in or what?" she said.

Veronica grimaced and gestured towards two deck chairs, where they sat down. "It's only been a week, of course I haven't moved in yet. But…"

Mac looked at her. "But…what?"

"We haven't spent a night apart since last weekend's craziness. He's either been at my place or I've been here. Do you we're moving too fast?"

Mac rolled her eyes. "With you two, all sense of time is rendered irrelevant. Besides, it sounds like you went through some intense stuff together. Again. Are you sure you guys know how to date without being involved in some kind of crime investigation?"

Veronica laughed. "I hope so. We've been dancing around each other for years. While the crime thing is fun, this little escapade reminded me of how scary it can be. Things seem to have calmed down a bit, for now. But I don't know how long I can just pretend everything is ok."

Mac reached for her purse and extracted a data key. "Well, when you get bored with your blissful reunion sexcapade, I've got that information you asked me for last week."

Veronica's eyes widened. She couldn't resist digging deeper. "Thanks, Mac. For everything."

"No problem, Bond."

"Aww, I've missed you calling me that, Q."

"Now can you please give me an update on all of this?"

Veronica filled Mac in on all that had happened in the last week, with Wiedman tracking her down, Gory going rogue, Logan rescuing her, her father being hush-hush about what was really going on.

"That must be driving you mental," Mac said, referring to the last point.

Veronica shrugged. "It is. But there's not much I can do right now. As much as I'd like to track down Wiedman and figure out what the hell is going on, I have to focus on my new job."

"Yeah, bosses tend to like it when their employees show up and fulfill their job requirements."

"Speaking of, how's Google and LA?"

Mac gave Veronica a rundown of her life. She had a cute house in the suburbs and she commuted every day like everyone else in LA. She liked the work, being surrounded by other computer geeks, and the city was ok, although a bit overwhelming at times. She visited her family in Neptune every few months.

They suddenly heard a meow, and Logan's cat, Patricia, was winding her way around the legs of Mac's chair. "Well hello there, kitty," Mac said, reaching down to pet the pudgy marmalade tabby.

"I can't believe Pat the cat is already cozying up to you!" Veronica said. "She didn't show her face around me until the third time I was here, and Logan had to drag her out of hiding."

"She's probably jealous that you're stealing her man," Mac said as she lifted the cat into her lap. Patricia glared at Veronica and purred while Mac massaged her. "What an adorable kitty. Pat the cat?"

"Her full name is Patricia Cornwell," Veronica said. "Logan thinks the New York Times bestseller list is a great place to find pet names, apparently. He found her near the beach in Hawaii."

"You're a little surf cat, aren't you?" Mac said to Patricia as she snuggled the tabby.

"Oh yeah, speaking of surfing, I forgot to tell you—Dick is coming to dinner."

Mac's eyes grew round and she squeezed Patricia a little harder. "Dick Casablancas?"

"The one and only. I guess he's still living in Neptune, selling real estate."

"I hope he isn't following his father's business model."

"According to Logan he's on the straight and narrow. They still talk a lot, I guess."

"You don't sound that excited to see him," Mac observed.

Veronica's nose crinkled. "Yeah, I don't know, I still associate him with all the shit he did to me in high school."

"You know, he apologized to me for the way he acted, once," Mac said, her eyes on Pat the cat.

"What? Dick  _apologized_  to you?"

Mac smiled. "I know, it's shocking, right? It was a long time ago. We were all at the beach hanging out freshman year—I think Wallace might have been working on some kind of project—and Dick pulled me aside and said he was sorry for the way he treated me and Cassidy. And then he…" she trailed off, her hand rubbing the cat's belly.

"And then he what?" Veronica prompted.

"Uh, he kind of tried to kiss me. But I think he was drunk."

Veronica sat up straight. "Oh my god, Mac! Dick tried to kiss you?"

"Over ten years ago! It doesn't mean anything."

"I don't know, Mac. According to Logan, Dick's been nursing a little crush on you for years."

Mac blushed. "He has not. He was just drunk on the beach."

"Dick being drunk is a baseline, not a frame for judging his behavior. At least it was back then. Logan says he's cleaned his life up a lot."

"Great. Now I'm going to be majorly embarrassed when I see him," Mac said. Patricia meowed as Mac flipped her over on her lap.

"Why? It's not like you've been harboring a secret crush on Dick too… unless you have?"

"No way," Mac said. "In fact, I've been dating a really nice guy from work. His name is Joe."

"Too bad, we could have gone on some awesome double dates," Veronica teased.

Mac just rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Dream on."

The girls continued to talk for awhile, trying to cover the topics they had missed. By the time Logan got back from the grocery story they were discussing what their old Hearst classmates were up to.

"Hey Logan, did you hear that Parker just had a baby with her lesbian partner in Colorado?" Veronica said as he came onto the porch.

"I did hear that, actually, on Facebook." he said. "After she dated me she knew she could never find another man equal to me so she started dating chicks instead."

"Uh, pretty sure that is completely false," Veronica said.

Mac just laughed. "Still the same ego, I see," she said as the cat got up from her lap and jumped down to walk to Logan.

"You've met my wife, Patricia?" he said, scooping the cat up off the deck.

"She's lovely. Although I have to say, I didn't think you were into redheads," Mac joked.

Logan walked over and kissed the top of Veronica's head. "They say variety is the spice of life, right?"

"What did you get at the store?" Veronica asked, smiling at Logan's touch.

"The usual barbecue fare. Steaks and sausages for the men and the normal women, vegan patties for Mac, some vegetables to toss on there for good measure."

"Hey," Mac protested. "Veganism is really mainstream now, in case you haven't been paying attention. You guys should try it sometime, it'll make you cool."

"I don't know, Mac," Veronica said. "I think I just like meat too much."

"That's what she said," Mac replied, and all three of them burst out laughing.

They spent the next few hours setting things up for the barbecue and hanging out by the pool. People began arriving around four o' clock, with Keith, Alicia, and Wallace being the first.

Logan opened the door to let them in. "Welcome to the party, everyone," he said, as he brought them inside.

"What are we celebrating?" Keith asked.

"Nobody's been kidnapped by a mobster for six whole days?" Logan suggested.

"Very funny," Keith said.

"Alicia, it's very nice to see you again," Logan said as he took a bowl of potato salad from her arms.

"It's good to see you too, Logan."

"And Wallace! Long time no see, man."

"How's it hangin, Echolls?" Wallace said as he and Logan hugged in the manly way men like to hug their friends.

"Oh, you know the usual," Logan said.

"Veronica keeping you in line?" Wallace joked.

"You mean, am I keeping  _her_  in line? Barely," he replied.

He led them out to the backyard where Veronica and Mac were by the pool.

"Dad! Alicia! Little brother!" Veronica said, getting up from the chair where she lounged.

She pulled Wallace into a hug. "I'm so glad you're here!"

Wallace patted your back. "I'm so glad  _you're_ here, Vee. Your dad filled me in on what happened."

Veronica glared at Keith. "I thought we were keeping that on the down low?"

"All in the family, Veronica," Keith responded.

Wallace laughed as he looked between the two of them. "That's right, a nice crime-fighting family bonding experience."

"Crime-fighting doesn't pay much, but I hear the investment banking world does. How are things at Goldman Sachs?"

Wallace shrugged. "You know, riding out the recession, trying to not to be too evil."

Veronica rolled her eyes. "Good luck with that and use the bailout money wisely, please."

"Enough shop talk, Vee. How are you doing, really?"

Veronica led Wallace towards the cooler they had set up earlier and offered him a beer. They stepped away from everyone else so they could have a moment alone.

"Things are… good, I think. Really good, in some ways," she said, looking over at Logan as he talks with Keith and Alicia.

"I hear things are back on between you two," Wallace said, his face a bit concerned.

"Yeah? How is daddy dearest framing it this time?" Veronica responded.

Wallace smiled. "You know, Keith really likes Logan. They've been in touch for a while now."

"That's what I hear," Veronica said.

"I hear you flipped your lid when you found out," Wallace said, chuckling.

Veronica's eyes flashed and she punched Wallace's upper arm. "I was surprised, but I did not 'flip my lid,'" she insisted.

"Whatever you say, Vee," he replied. "But seriously, are you happy? That's all I care about. I know you two have had your drama in the past, but if you make each other happy, that's what matters."

Veronica watched Logan, her heart swelling with love. "There will always be drama with us. We thrive on it. But I think we've finally figured out that we'd rather be together with the drama than apart without it. It's early days yet, of course. But it feels right."

Wallace put his arm around Veronica's shoulders. "Glad to hear it, sis."

"And what about you, little brother? Ladies love bankers, from what I hear," she joked.

Veronica and Wallace talked for a bit longer, sharing updates about each other's lives and talking about their family. The doorbell rang inside the house and Logan ran inside to get it, returning soon with Weevil, Carmen, and their son, Ramon.

"Weevil!" Veronica exclaimed, making her way over to them. "I mean, Eli! Sorry, Carmen, the old nickname just comes so naturally."

Carmen laughed. "It's ok, Veronica. I'm used to it."

Veronica hugged Carmen, then gave Ramon a hug too. "Hey buddy, long time no see. Did you bring your swimming stuff?"

"Yeah!" the eight-year-old said, grinning widely. "Can I swim now, Mom?"

Carmen smiled. "In a minute, Ramon. We still have to say hi to everyone and then find a place for you to get changed."

"I can show you inside," Veronica said.

Weevil came over to them after greeting Keith and Alicia. "Here's trouble," he said, pulling Veronica in for a hug.

"Hi, old friend," she said.

"I'm happy to see you in one piece," he replied, quiet so his son doesn't overhear.

"Geez, for something that's supposed to be kept on the 'down low,' a lot of people sure know about it."

Weevil shrugged. "We care about you, Vee. You're just gonna have to deal with that."

Yeah, she was. It had taken her a long time to understand that she had to stop pushing away people who cared about her. She had to stop rebelling against their efforts to protect her when she got herself into dangerous situations. Being back in southern California was making all of this very clear to her.

Soon everyone was hanging out around the pool, Logan manning the grill and everyone else piling their plates with food and kicking back in the sunshine. Ramon was laughing and playing in the pool. Veronica smiled as she looked around, filled with wonder that they could all be together like this, living their lives, moving on into the future. Ten years ago things had been so dark, it had been impossible for her to envision a future. But here she was now.

Logan caught her eye from where he stood by the grill and winked at her. She felt her heart swell with love for him. She mentally crossed her fingers and knocked on wood as she thought to herself,  _Please, please let it work this time. Please let us be patient with each other. We can't live without each other, so we have to figure out how to live with each other without driving each other away. We can do this. I think._

Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell ringing. "Hey Veronica, do you mind getting that? I'm busy with the grill," Logan said.

"No problem, babe," she said, and she saw his eyebrows go up as a smile spread across his face. Had she just used a term of endearment for him…in public? Without sarcasm? She had. What a world.

Veronica made her way to the front door and opened it to find Dick Casablancas leaning against the outside wall of the house. "Well, if it isn't the tiny blonde terror!" he said.

"Nice to see you too, Dick," Veronica said drolly as she beckoned him inside.

Dick surprised her by pulling her in for a hug. "I'm just kidding, Veronica. I mean, I'm still terrified of you, but in, like, a good way."

Veronica looked up at him, confused. "I'll take that as a compliment."

Dick sniffed the air and looked around. "Smells like meat! Get me to the steaks and the brewskies, please."

Veronica shook her head and smiled with resignation. Some things never changed. "Everyone else is out back. Follow me."

Dick looked around as they walked through the house. "This place is shaping up nicely!" he said. "I told Logan he was loco for wanting to paint it and stuff himself when it's so easy to hire some Mexicans to do that, but it actually looks good."

Veronica rolled her eyes. "Culturally sensitive as always, I see," she muttered under her breath.

They emerged onto the back patio to find the barbecue in full swing. "Whoa, blast from the past!" Dick exclaimed. "Holy shit, is that Ghostworld?"

"Ghostworld?" Veronica asked, confused.

Dick had left her and was already making his was towards Mac, who coincidentally was sitting by the beer cooler. Veroncia watched as Mac saw him approach, her face blushing slightly.

"Mac!" he said as he made his way to the cooler. "I didn't know you were gonna be here."

Mac shrugged. "Here I am."

"Awesome. This is so awesome! I mean, I didn't always hang out with these people back in the day, but it's so rad, it's almost like time travelling back to the mid-2000s except everyone has better fashion sense."

Veronica watched Mac, remembering what Mac had told her about her encounter with Dick on the beach ten years ago. She'd never thought about the two of them having a dynamic before, but now that the idea was in her mind, she couldn't shake it.

Logan took a break from the grill to come over and give Dick a high five. "Hey man, glad you could make it."

"Me too, man," Dick said. "I'm always up for a party by the pool. You got a steak for me?"

Dick was momentarily silenced by the act of eating, and everyone else made small talk. Veronica got her plate of food and sat with Weevil and Carmen while they kept an eye on Ramon in the pool. They were having a conversation about Carmen's job as the new guidance counselor at Neptune High when they suddenly heard a howling sound. They turned their heads to see Dick pulling off his shirt, backing up to get a running start, and then launching into the pool with a massive cannonball dive. Water splashed everywhere and Ramon giggled with delight.

"Nobody told him to wait thirty minutes after eating?" Veronica commented.

Logan came over then and joined them. He set down his plate and gave Veronica a kiss on the cheek, leaning close to her ear to whisper, "Got your bikini on?"

"You know it," she whispered back, and she saw Weevil looking at them with an amused look on his face.

"Isn't this nice," Weevil said.

"Isn't it just," Logan replied. The two men had made their peace years ago, but they still weren't close friends.

Veronica wondered if that would change now that everyone was living back in the same area. She wondered how all of their relationships would change now that things were settling into a new pattern. She was here for good now, and Logan was too. For the first time in her life she felt like she was able to think ahead and see herself in this place, with these people in her life for a long time. It was a beautiful feeling.

Logan stood up suddenly. "I'd like to make a toast," he said, clinking his plastic fork against his beer bottle.

Everyone grew quiet. "I want to thank everyone for coming over today to hang out with us. It's been a long time since some of us have seen each other. A lot has happened over the years, but somehow all of you keep coming back into my life, in one way or another. And I like that." He put his hand on Veronica's shoulder. "You guys are our family. So, let's raise a glass to that."

"To family!" everyone said, holding up their drinks.

Veronica looked up at Logan just as he was looking down at her. Their eyes locked and she smiled, feeling the emotion in his eyes. They were family, the two of them and these people who loved them in spite of their shortcomings. Come hell or high water, they would stick together. And knowing them, there would be plenty of hell and high water, but they could survive it. Their timing was finally right.

_Fin_


End file.
